Voodoo Child
by 1985laurie
Summary: Strange things are happening to House...House!hurt and its getting pretty intense...need I say more? Strong HouseWilson friendship. Enjoy...Chapter 16 up now! No slash. Now complete...for now.
1. Chapter 1

**A brief announcement from 1985laurie: Hello, only me – just wanted to explain about this fic…I was bored, I had loads of work to do but I somehow ended up writing this…It is going _somewhere_, trust me. But for now it's just a little 'House!hurt with a fair bit of humour' story for all the people who seem to like my writing (I can't understand it myself!) It's a little tongue in cheek and I am pretty much making fun of myself and my sadistic nature. So enjoy…**

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It all started on a normal day in the clinic; House had no patients and even Wilson seemed to be going through a dry spell. They were both traipsing through the clinic, on their way to lunch, when House stopped suddenly and dropped himself into the nearest chair causing it to scrape noisily against the floor. Wilson stopped in his tracks when he saw House's cane scoot past him, and he turned to see House crouch over his bad leg; he didn't know whether to ignore it and wait for House to get back up, or if he should ask House about increased leg pain just to get angrily dismissed.

"Leg" Wilson stated simply, choosing the latter option and expecting to get an 'I'm fine' answer as usual.

"Sorta…" House replied looking slightly worried as he raised his head to look Wilson in the eye, "ankle just gave out."

"What, just like that?"

"Yeah…"

House sat in the chair feeling every bit as confused as Wilson looked. He'd been walking beside Wilson, ranting about how the nurses shouldn't be able to get lunch before hungry doctors, when he'd felt something snap in his right ankle. His first instinct had been to get off his feet, so he'd literally thrown himself onto one of the plastic chairs that were scattered around the clinic waiting area. Now he was fully conscious of the 20 or so 'sick' people, who had obviously taken the time from their own lunch hour to get checked out for STD's in the free clinic, who were now staring at him. 'No way am I going to be stuck in here' he thought as he gingerly hopped up and grabbed his cane which Wilson had picked up, 'not with this bunch of idiots watching my every move' he thought indignantly.

He motioned to Wilson to enter the exam room that he'd literally just escaped from to go to lunch; Wilson facial expression by this point was a mixture of bemusement, worry and confusion. House managed to lean completely over his cane without using his right leg at all as he threw himself into the empty exam room and hopped onto the bed. Wilson closely followed and closed the door; he turned to find House attempting to lift his leg onto the bed, a grimace set on his face.

"What's going on?" Wilson asked as he stood by the door; something had House spooked, and it was scary enough to stop him from going to lunch!

"That's what I want to know…" House said as he gently pushed his shoe off with his left foot, hissing as the action angered his ankle. "Take my sock off."

"I'm not touching your feet!" Wilson exclaimed loudly, causing a few people sitting nearest to their exam room to momentarily look up from their carefully selected magazines.

"I didn't know you suffered from podophobia…" House said, clearly amused at how much Wilson didn't want to touch his feet.

"Other people's feet are fine – it's just yours I don't want to touch." Wilson said defensively as he stuck his ground by the door.

"Fine…" House muttered under his breath as he tentatively leant over his thigh and peeled his sock off to reveal a nasty looking break coupled with plenty of bruising and swelling.

"How…what – how?" Wilson stuttered as he overcame his apparent podophobia to grab House's foot and examine it; House leaned back on his elbows, a bemused look on his face.

"I have no idea…ow!" He replied as Wilson continued to prod and pull at the injured limb, "would you cut that out – it does hurt."

"Sorry…" Wilson said distractedly as he frowned at the broken ankle as though it had deformed into an alien appendage, "when did this happen?"

"About…2 minutes ago?" House said, not even believing it himself. "Honestly, I haven't done anything that would have caused this…it just _went_ out there!"

Wilson looked at his friend sceptically, but House either had his best poker face on or he was actually telling the truth…

"You didn't fall last night, maybe kick the coffee table or…get knocked off your bike?" Wilson said, knowing full well that House hadn't used his bike for the past two days and he had spent the whole of last night watching T.V with him.

"No, nor did I go jogging during the night, fall in the shower or get beaten up by tobacco chewing cowboys!" House said, grinning at the thought, "get me some crutches – stat"

"You're actually enjoying this?"

"Hey, my bones are breaking for no apparent reason – what's not to enjoy?" House said as he leaned back onto the bed, his arms going numb from leaning on them for too long; he just had time to chuckle at Wilson's look of disbelief as he caught a glimpse of Cuddy storming towards the exam room, "lock the door, lock the door!"

Unfortunately Wilson wasn't quick on the uptake and the door came flying open, slamming into his shoulder as Cuddy burst in looking irate, "what's going on?" she asked, looking slightly disappointed that she hadn't walked in on anything worth seeing, 'damn, I seriously thought I'd prove those rumours to be true…'

"I don't remember asking for a consult." House said innocently as he lay on the bed.

"Nurse Brenda told me that you two were in here…_together_…at _lunchtime_...with _no_ _patients_." She said, forcing the point home to Wilson who looked shocked, "and she heard shouting…something about feet?"

"So you thought we were…" He couldn't continue, especially when he saw the smirk on House's face, "He's broken his ankle." He blurted out pointing at House, causing the smirk to be replaced with a scowl.

"What, how?" Cuddy asked, turning her attention to the man on the bed; only now did she notice the lack of shoe and sock on his right foot.

"Snowboarding." House replied sarcastically.

"House, I hardly believe extreme sports are your forte." Cuddy said dryly as she regarded his thigh.

"Yeah, that's why I broke my ankle." He replied making Cuddy roll her eyes in frustration.

She abandoned the interrogation, turning to Wilson to see if she could get a straight answer; it must have happened in the last hour or two because she'd already seen House today and he was limping around fine, therefore Wilson must have been present for the accident, or at least close-by.

"I uh, we're not really sure how it happened…" Wilson said, shrugging to show his indifference, "it just…broke."

"You're going to need it x-rayed…and probably a cast." Cuddy said as she backed out of the room. Obviously there was some kind of big secret that she wasn't allowed to be a part of; and in the event that it may prove to be illegal or simply damaging to the hospital, she didn't really want to find out how House had broken the damn thing!

Wilson watched her leave with a mixture of disbelief, embarrassment and horror on his face; "I think she thinks that we're up to something" he said worriedly.

"Crutches!" House said, clapping his hands together to remind Wilson that there was a sense of urgency; he had spent all morning trying to get out of clinic, this ankle breaking business had bought him a free pass to radiology for the afternoon!

Unsurprisingly, no one quite believed the fact that House really didn't know how he'd managed to break his ankle and that he'd managed to sustain such a bad looking break with severe swelling and nasty bruising. Foreman and Chase were under the impression that he'd been beaten by a clinic patient and Cameron was under the delusion that he'd probably heroically rescued a puppy from certain death by leaping out in front of a bus…or some other similar romantic/heroic gesture.

The next 6 weeks saw House casted up and roaming PPTH's halls on crutches; he eventually pushed the fact that his ankle had broken for no apparent reason to the back of his mind and convinced himself that he must have stepped awkwardly. It was harder to apply the same logic to the next strange occurrence that happened to him a week after the cast was removed…


	2. Chapter 2

House sneaked into his office, being cautious enough to check over his shoulder for anyone daring to follow him; it was clear, no stalkers. He grinned as he lowered himself into his chair and pulled out a newly acquired magazine from his jacket; impressed with how he'd managed to steal it so stealthily from the maternity ward waiting area.

He managed to get at least ten minutes of satisfying reading time out of it before he was interrupted by the ducklings, who had returned form performing some invasive tests on a poor elderly man who had come in with a suspected bad case of food poisoning the previous week and was now facing the unbearable truth that he only had a month left to live due to stomach cancer.

Cameron led the offensive, the only one of the three who hadn't had their head bitten off by House lately; he had been in an exceptionally bad mood this week due to the little pangs he felt from his leg, unhappy that it had been neglected for 6 weeks due to his broken ankle.

"You were right. He has cancer; probably less than a month to live." She started sadly, much to House's amusement.

"Oh well, on the bright side, you've got a month to get to know him before you marry the guy..." House replied; seeing the anger in Cameron's eyes he briefly wondered if he'd over stepped the mark on this occasion.

"He's 86 years old." Chase said with disgust as Cameron sighed and left the office with House watching her every move; she hadn't gotten nearly as angry as he'd expected, which was a let down.

"Great." He said simply, signaling the end of his participation in the conversation; Foreman and Chase weren't as satisfying to wind up as their female colleague. "Ship him over to Oncology and get Wils-"

He felt something painfully crunch in his chest as he was about to finish his order; which, coupled with the fact that he now felt like there was an elephant sitting on his chest constricting it so that he was unable to breathe, made him panic slightly! He slammed his hands down on the table as he gasped for air and he lent over them; Foreman and Chase looked at each other quizzically before looking back to their boss who was leaning over the desk, head pressed against the back of his hands.

"You...okay?" Foreman asked as he heard House painfully draw in a small, wheezy breath. When House failed to reply, the boys geared themselves into action, gingerly lifting his upper body off of the desk and leaning him back into the chair.

House let his head roll back as he squeezed his eyes closed and fought through the pain to take in another measly measure of air, enough to stop him from passing out. Foreman was picking up the phone to call for emergency assistance as Chase tried vainly to get House to tell him where it hurts; it probably would have been easier to draw blood from a stone...

"Is it your leg?" Chase asked loudly, causing Cameron to glance up from her journal in the conference room and see the other two looming over House. She decided that this required some investigation so she hesitantly made her way to the glass doors to see what was going on, hoping that maybe Chase and Foreman had reprimanded House for that tasteless comment he'd made towards her...

"What's going on?" She asked as she saw Chase trying desperately to hear what House was struggling to say by positioning his head an inch away from his, it looked...intimate.

"Chest...pain..." Chase repeated the gasped words that House was able to give to him, "Heart attack?" House scowled as he pushed himself away from the desk and once again lent over his arms on the desk, all this lack of air malarkey was making him dizzy and leaning over seemed to relieve the pressure slightly.

"They're bringing a gurney – what happened?" Foreman directed his question to Chase who shrugged and dropped down to his knees to get a better look at his patient who was busy seemingly hyperventilating over his desk, "Damn it, House – breathe you idiot!" Foreman said as he watched House's back constrict as he failed to draw in any air.

'If I _could_ breathe then don't you think I would be breathing _right now_!' House thought as he scowled into his arms and made a mental note to severely punish Foreman for calling him an idiot. 'Jesus, breathe...can't get enough air – too much pain...what the hell happened? Something snapped...that's not right...' He thought as his ears started to ring and black spots danced in front of his eyes.

Cameron threw the door tom the office open as the gurney arrived, she looked expectantly to Chase to transfer House from his chair to it; Chase frowned and sighed "why me?" before he took on the mammoth task.

"House, we need to get you to the ER..." Chase waited a moment, but no reply came, "House?" He tugged at his shoulder and quickly motioned for Foreman to help when he realized that House had passed out. His breathing was shallow and uneven, but that was actually an improvement from when he had been conscious a few moments ago.

"Relax, he's out cold." Chase stated as he saw Foreman hesitate to lift House from the chair.

"You say it like it's a good thing." Foreman grunted whilst helping to lift House, slightly amused at how relieved he too had felt when he knew House was unconscious. "Call Wilson and Cuddy – get them on this." He instructed to Cameron who seemed to be hypnotized by her boss on the gurney; she nodded and stumbled over to the phone as Foreman and Chase rushed House down to the ER...

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Wilson was fulfilling his clinic duty, as every good doctor should do; after three cases of gonorrhea and one suspected case of herpes, however, he was tempted to forgo the remaining half an hour and head to lunch early – now he realised why House hated this so much.

He made his way to the nurses station to ditch his file in an attempt to sneak off early, when Cuddy came storming out of her office, she stopped short when she saw him and he thought the game was up. "I was just about to-"

"House. ER. Now." She cut him off, grabbing his arm and leading him out through the doors.

"What's House doing in the ER?" Wilson asked, wondering what the hell was going on. House had a case – the prehistoric man, or so House had called him, so why was he down in the ER?

"Cameron sounded worried, she said something about House having chest pains..." Cuddy trailed off as they entered the stairwell, choosing the quickest route to the ER.

"What – you don't think Heart Attack?" Wilson said incredulously, his own heart skipping a beat as he worried about his friend.

"I don't know...would it surprise you?" Cuddy asked breathlessly as they charged down the stairs, pushing past anyone who dared get in their way.

"Yes! He's the healthiest guy I know-" Wilson stated defensively.

"He's hardly active, he can't run...how often do you suppose his heart rate actually becomes elevated in the course of a week? He lives off take-aways...and god knows how much he drinks without us knowing, even with the pills..."

Wilson ignored Cuddy's skepticism as he charged his way into the emergency room to find House and his three fellows. They weren't hard to find. House was awake, clutching an O2 mask over his mouth at the same time as he was trying to stop Cameron from cutting off his t shirt; she was insisting, loudly, that they needed to see what the problem was.

Chase and Foreman stood by idly as they observed the argument; the fact that House had literally only just regained consciousness didn't hither his side, and he seemed to be winning because Cameron huffed and dropped the scissors on the bed with the arrival of Cuddy and Wilson.

"What's going on?" Cuddy asked to anyone who could provide an answer; House looked pissed, not sick.

"He passed out at his desk, complaining of chest pain, that's all we know – now he's awake and he won't let the ER docs look at him, he wants Wilson." Chase explained, "Foreman's done a neuro check – mentally he's fine."

'That's a gross understatement.' House thought as he gingerly lifted up his t shirt for Wilson to check his chest, Cameron shot him a dirty look before Cuddy ushered them out of the room. Wilson motioned for House to take off his t shirt, there was no way he was getting away without an examination; he could understand why he was reluctant to have Cameron do it though.

"Whoah, what have you done to yourself now!" Wilson exclaimed as he furrowed his brow at the nasty looking bruise in the centre of House's chest; House returned his question with a frown as he looked for himself, temporarily removing the O2 mask.

"Haven't...done...anything." House gasped as he tried to sit up; Cuddy grabbed the mask and pressed it hastily back over his mouth, effectively shutting him up.

"Get him to Radiology." She instructed to Wilson, "I don't know what's going on House, but I have a feeling that you've somehow brought this on yourself." Cuddy pointed in a threatening manner at House, who didn't seem to be paying attention. "House?"

He gaped painfully, grabbing his chest with one hand and Wilson's arm with the other. Cuddy immediately reached for a nearby stethoscope and pressed it over the bruise, ignoring the flinch he gave when she pressed a little too hard, "I...I think there's blood around his heart." she said after a few moments, shaking her head in disbelief as she stood, rooted to the spot, in shock.

Wilson jumped into action by hurriedly taking a syringe from the bedside cart and pushing House, who was choking back cries as he felt like he was being stabbed repeatedly through the heart, back down on the bed. He skillfully stabbed the syringe into the desired area and pulled the plunger out; it was filled completely with blood. He repeated the action twice before he was happy with the rate of House's breathing.

Cuddy summoned an ER doc over to 'wire House up' to the various machines to help monitor his condition; he had passed out again which she could take as both a good thing and a bad thing.

"Get him stabilized...get him to radiology – then I need to see you in my office." Cuddy said shakily. She gave House one last worried look before she took off to find out from his team what really happened...

Wilson glanced up at the irregular beeping of the heart monitor, "What the hell happened House?" he asked to his friend's still form; "there's something you're not telling me..."


	3. Chapter 3

House awoke to the sound of his heart monitor, which was disconcerting but at the same time, strangely comforting; well, it meant he wasn't dead yet in any case.

His eyes flickered a few times before opening completely; he was pleased to feel that he was on some pretty strong painkillers, 'great, good old Cuddy' he thought as he took a few careful breaths.

"Okay, you appear to be awake…are you?" Cuddy asked after a couple of minutes watching House stare blankly at the ceiling.

"Nope, I'm still asleep…stupid to do it with my eyes open really, lets all the light in…" House replied weakly, "what happened?"

"That was going to be my question…" she stated; eager to find out how exactly House had managed to injure himself again. "Well?"

"You probably know more than I do at this point…"

"X rays show that you've cracked your sternum; which caused a slight bleed into your heart."

"Oh great…I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that I don't have a clue how it happened?" House asked, raising his eyebrows questioningly.

Cuddy shook her head. "We need to do a bone marrow biopsy – rule out cancer."

"It'll come back negative." House stated nonchalantly as he pressed his hand over the bruised area. He pulled up his gown and briefly wondered how long Cuddy had been watching him; surely she should have better things to be getting on with, like dating or maybe running a hospital?

"House, bones don't just break of their own accord – if it's cancer, we can-"

"I already tested for it – when my ankle went. It's not cancer." House said, meeting Cuddy's eyes for the first time since he'd woken.

"Who did the biopsy?" Cuddy asked, almost believing that he was just saying that to get out of the painful test; she hadn't seen any records of it, therefore he must be lying.

"Wilson practically forced me into it – you know him, all motherly and caring. I had to do it to stop him from nagging at me."

"Riiight…not because _you_ were worried at all?" Cuddy knew she had it when he broke eye contact.

House evaded actually answering the question by double checking his stats, then unhooking himself from all the machines; Cuddy looked on in disbelief as he raised the head of the bed and gingerly kicked the covers off of his legs.

"What are you doing?" She asked, knowing full well that he was planning his escape.

"Getting out of here." House replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Where's Wilson?" he asked at almost the same time as Wilson appeared at the door with a wheelchair, "cool, well haven't we got extra sensory perception today – were your House senses tingling?"

Wilson looked thoroughly confused at this comment and chose to ignore it; instead opting to draw up the wheelchair beside House's bed. House looked from the wheelchair to Wilson then to Cuddy; this was too easy, they were actually letting him go – there had to be a catch...

"You're letting me go?" He asked suspiciously eyeing the exit; fully expecting to see armed sentries and barbed wire flummoxing his homeward route.

"You want to stay?" Cuddy asked in exactly the same suspicious tone.

"Nope." He replied without missing a beat but continuing to be wary of the small child that was wandering through the ward, motherless; 'possible sniper in disguise maybe?' he thought apprehensively as he witnessed a nurse pick the child up and take it to a neighbouring room, '...or maybe not - maybe these painkillers are a little strong!'

"Then go home….Wilson's going to be looking after you for the next couple of weeks." Cuddy said with a smile playing on her lips as she watched House's confused look turn into slight disbelief. "I'd rather have you looked after at home where you can't harass my members of staff."

"Technically, Wilson is a member of your staff…but I get your point." House said cautiously as he lent forward to get into chair; walking with his cane was going to be hell with his chest scraping with every movement, "Home Jeeves!"

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Once home, House headed straight for the sofa and turned on the T.V, signalling the start of his 2 week T.V marathon; Wilson sighed and resigned himself to the kitchen where he made an effort to tidy up.

"House you've got 5 messages on your machine." Wilson shouted to make himself heard above the racket the T.V was making; House tore his eyes off of the screen to cast a fearful look Wilson's way that went unnoticed.

As no reply seemed to be coming from the living room, Wilson decided to scan through them and delete; once he'd poured himself an orange juice from the fridge, he pressed play and lent in close to hear the first message received a week ago…

'Just because you don't answer anymore doesn't mean I'm going to stop calling; and it defiantly doesn't mean I'm going to stop hurting you…' came a sing-song elderly ladies voice, Wilson frowned at the strange message before he deleted it and moved onto number two, dated four days ago…

'Hurts today doesn't it…I bet you can feel those extra pangs even more now that you can walk on it again, can't you?' Wilson deleted again, briefly glancing up to see House apparently engrossed in the T.V. Next message, two days ago…

'Don't you dare hang up on me again! I'll do it – you know that I will…fine…have it your way – I know you're listening!' The woman sounded livid and barely in control; Wilson came to the conclusion that House had gotten himself an elderly, female stalker with anger management issues. Next message, received yesterday, 9pm…

'Oh no, what's the matter – can't catch your breath? It's going to get worse before it gets better…I know you can hear me…' Wilson swallowed hard, 'okay now this is weird…' he thought as he pressed play on the last message, dated today, two hours ago in fact…

'Did I press too hard? You haven't answered your phone all day – you know what happens if you ignore me…' the evil, growled voice filled the kitchen and Wilson almost jumped through the roof when he realised that House was leaning against the table directly behind him, one hand absently clutching his chest as he listened to the old woman cackling on the message, 'you'll love what I've got planned for you next time…' she finished.

"She's a delight isn't she…?" He mumbled as he dragged out a chair to sit on, preparing himself for the torrent of questions that were about to be fired at him by Wilson.

"Who is she?" Wilson finally blurted out after a minute of opening and closing his mouth trying to find the right words.

"Ummm…crazed stalker lady…no idea." House said as he reached over for Wilson's drink, wincing as he reached the peak of his stretching ability with regards to his grinding chest injury.

"How long has she been calling you?"

"About two months."

"What! Why haven't you changed your number?" Wilson asked disbelievingly, grabbing his glass out of House's hand just in time to get the dregs from the orange juice…nice.

"She also has my pager number, my office number, my email address, office address, home address…she might have my cell number but since neither myself, nor Cameron, actually answers it – there's really no way to tell." House stated matter-of-factly.

"Cameron knows?"

"Cameron sorts my mail; sometimes she notices a trend…such as when a certain crazed woman sends the same threatening letters over and over again."

"You _have_ to call the police."

"Yeah…and tell them that I'm being stalked by a geriatric maniac who insists that she is the cause of all my pain...are those men in white coats waiting by the front door?" House pretended to look over Wilson's shoulder at the door, Wilson sighed in response without looking round.

"They wouldn't commit you – they could trace the calls, find out where she lives, go around there-"

"Tranquilize her, lock her up and throw away the key…what alternate universe are you living in?" House scowled as he attempted to abandon the conversation by returning, slowly and carefully, to the sanctuary of the couch.

"So you're choosing to sit back and do nothing?" Wilson asked as he followed House into the other room, much to House's annoyance.

"No…I'm choosing to sit back and watch T.V." House replied as he caught the sound of the phone ringing in the other room, "don't do it!"

Wilson put his hands up in a 'who me?' gesture as he backed into the kitchen; House grimaced and attempted to get up from the couch again, he wasn't going to let Wilson get involved too; the only problem was that speed wasn't his friend on a good day, and today was defiantly far from a good day.

Wilson answered the phone with a simple "hello?" and waited patiently for a reply; not noticing House collapsing in agony through the archway behind him as the caller chuckled coldly down the line…

**Author's Note: Cheers for the reviews so far; apologies to the person who doesn't like this story (you didn't leave an email address, so I couldn't find out specifically what you hated about the characterisation…sorry!) Anyway, only a few chapters left…hopefully you won't all hate it too much…plus, remember, this _is_ supposed to be tongue in cheek!**


	4. Chapter 4

Wilson spun round when he heard House moan behind him, "It's you doing this isn't it?" he shouted to the laughing caller; he dropped to his knees, phone still pressed firmly against his ear. "House, what's up?"

House lay winded on his cold kitchen floor; his head was swimming from the fall; he could hear Wilson in the distance, yelling questions down the phone. 'Damn it Wilson, she won't listen' House wanted to shout, thinking back to all the abuse that he'd sent down the line only for it to fall on deaf ears. He tried to recall how he had ended up laying on his stomach on his kitchen floor, the last thing he remembered before almost passing out was that he'd been gripping the edge of the table, then he'd felt a blow to his torso that caused him to double over and lose his balance. 'Oh he's talking to you' he thought to himself as he heard Wilson ask him if he was okay, for the third time.

"You must have pissed her off." House gasped as he gingerly brought his left knee up and pushed himself up slightly with his arms; Wilson helped steady House by gripping his shoulders lightly as he stood, watching him sway momentarily before guiding him to the nearest seat. House took a moment crouched over his knees before he straightened himself up to meet Wilson's worried gaze; he felt punch drunk all of a sudden but the pain in his chest seemed to have reduced to a dull throbbing, 'the drugs must have kicked in' House thought almost giddily.

Wilson brought his attention back to the call as he heard the distinct sound of the dial tone in his ear; he sighed angrily and threw the phone onto the table, guiding his awareness back to his patient who looked extremely pale.

"House" Wilson said urgently, trying not to panic at the sight that was before him, "You're hurt"

House frowned, "That's why you're here" he replied sleepily.

"No – your side" Wilson said as he cautiously lifted the right hand side of House's t shirt up, revealing a mass of blood trailing from his ribcage down to his hip, 'shit'.

"Okay…you must have _really_ pissed her off." House said nonchalantly as he took in the sight of the huge gash that he was now sporting on his right side, "I liked this t shirt…"

Wilson grabbed the nearest thing he could use to apply pressure to the wound, the emergency bandage turned out to be a clean tea-towel that he had laid out on the side only five minutes ago. House flinched away from Wilson's hand when he pressed the towel tightly against his skin; this didn't dissuade Wilson who pressed harder, trying to stop the bleed.

He moved fast, knowing that they didn't have much time before House would pass out from the blood loss. "C'mon we're leaving. Can you make it to the car?" Wilson didn't wait for a reply before he 'assisted' House in standing; he barely heard the phone ringing in the kitchen as they gingerly made their way to the door.

House grunted when he was jolted against the doorframe as Wilson was trying to open the front door and hold him up at the same time; it was becoming increasingly difficult to help him stand as he became more sluggish and Wilson only hoped the make-shift bandage would keep him from losing too much blood before they made it to the hospital.

House's ears pricked up as he heard the machine pick up a message, he reached out and grabbed Wilson's arm, bringing him to a stop. "What?" Wilson asked with more urgency than he'd expected to; House mouthed 'phone' and it was then Wilson heard the shrill sound of the stalker woman screeching on the answer machine, he paused to listen – holding his breath dreaded anticipation as to what she was going to say.

"Don't you dare leave – I'm coming over – don't you want to see me again? You'll regret it if you leave…you _know_ what that means." The threatening elderly tone came piercing through the quiet room; Wilson saw House flinch slightly, his breathing becoming shallow and uneven; evidently House seemed to know what that threat was alluding to even if Wilson didn't.

"House, we're leaving." Wilson said as he grabbed House's left arm and carefully manoeuvred House out of the door; he didn't particularly want to stand there all night, waiting for House to go into shock.

They made it to the main door before House winced, letting out a groan that set Wilson's teeth on edge and made him stop in his tracks; had he hurt him? Maybe his chest was causing problems again. Wilson backed off, trying to get a better look at his friend who was desperately holding onto the doorframe; he barely had time to voice the inevitable 'what's wrong' question before House's legs buckled from beneath him and he collapsed, attempting to break the fall with his hands.

"Oh crap…" House moaned as he found himself face down in dust yet again; he was unimpressed with the amount of time he'd been spending in close proximity to the floorboards lately. "Get me back in - now." He ordered, albeit weakly, to Wilson who looked troubled.

"You need to get to the hospital before you bleed out all over the place."

"I'll need a grave if I don't get back in that apartment right now." House stated from his horizontal position on the floor. Wilson hesitated, looking at how close they were to the car – why would House be spooked by this crazy woman. "He doesn't seriously believe that he's being tortured by some witch does he?" Wilson said without realising it, simply thinking out loud.

"Yes _he_ does – and _he_ would like you to get _him_ in _his_ apartment before she gets here!" House said, unable to keep the panic from his voice as he heard a door slam from the apartment above; the last thing he needed was a nosey neighbour calling the cops and them trying to drag him out of his door way to an uncertain fate.

"Why, does she have a turbo charged broomstick too? What makes you think she's actually coming over?" Wilson asked warily as he dragged House back into his apartment, not even attempting to get him to his feet.

"Because she doesn't lie." House stated simply as he did his best to lean against the wall and continue applying pressure to his open wound, "she said she'd hurt me if I didn't answer the phone – she did; she said she'd hurt me if I left the apartment – she did…is that reason enough or do you want me to continue? Shut the door." Wilson complied automatically, still frowning at what House was trying to explain.

"You don't know that it's her – it could be…" try as he might, Wilson couldn't think of any plausible explanation as to how House had sustained any of his injuries. "You _can't_ believe this – it goes against _everything_ you know about logic…this doesn't make sense!"

House opened his mouth to answer but he couldn't think of anything to argue back…Wilson was right, none of this made sense. Did that mean there was no pain…no; in fact the pain seemed to be increasing with this very conversation.

Did the fact that it wasn't logical mean that he wasn't a little worried about the fact that everything in the apartment suddenly went eerily quiet, and footsteps could be heard coming from the hallway? Definitely not…


	5. Chapter 5

House swallowed painfully; his vision was becoming increasingly blurry and his leg felt like it was on fire with the pain radiating from his recently healed ankle to his never to be fully healed thigh. He was sure that he was in hell, or coming fairly close to it; the only thing which was missing was Cuddy and her beloved clinic – 'was that the sixth circle or seventh?' House stiffly lifted his head to try and find Wilson; he inhaled sharply when he looked to where he thought his friend was and found in his place someone completely different.

Staring down on the weak diagnostician was a grey haired, wrinkled (some would say her face was lived in; House would say she was well overdue to move out and get a new one.) old lady. House blinked, surprised that she'd managed to come so close before he noticed her – 'where the hell has Wilson gone?' he thought angrily, 'just like him to disappear – I must have passed out for a minute, shit…'

"Are you okay?" He heard a sweet, familiar voice ask; the question threw him slightly as he once again tilted his head back to look at the woman.

"I'm great, thanks for asking." He croaked, motioning with his hand, which was covered in blood from holding the bandage to his side, to his leg. The elderly lady didn't seem to acknowledge the sarcasm in his tone and continued smiling gently at him; as if this wasn't enough to freak him out, Wilson was still missing.

"Wilson" House said urgently, fully expecting to see Wilson jump out from behind the old woman…nothing. He struggled to lean forward in an attempt to use the wall to help him stand; he made it up to the old crone's eye level before he gasped and squeezed his eyes shut whilst sliding back down the wall. Standing up was obviously out of the question for now; he decided to scan the room for his lost companion from where he was stuck on the floor, he couldn't have gone far…

"The ambulance is on its way." The old woman said calmly, reminding House that she was still there; he squinted up at her as another wave of blurriness washed over him.

"You told me to stay; now you want me to go?" House asked, confused as to how he had managed to become so scared of this frail old lady, she looked harmless enough. As if to jog his memory, his chest sent out shocks to his brain, reminding him of the broken sternum; 'oh yeah…' he thought as he struggled to breathe yet again.

"Just stay still 'till the ambulance gets here." The nameless woman said firmly.

"How did you get in?" House asked when he'd steadied himself with a few good gulps of air; the door was closed and he was certain he would have heard her enter. Then again, he hadn't heard Wilson leave – this was getting more worrying by the minute.

"Get in where?"

'Oh great – now she's playing dumb' House thought as he swallowed thickly, reapplying his hand to the wound on his side; the blood soaked onto his t shirt was making it sticky and cold. He felt a shiver run down his spine, sending more shocks through his chest; the old woman seemed content with just standing a staring at him the whole time, she almost seemed to be waiting for something.

"Why are you here?" House asked, trying to sound angry but coming off as desperate for answers, "and where is Wilson?"

"Your friend?"

'Finally a breakthrough!' "Yeah…where is he?"

"He got out; don't worry you'll be out soon – they're on their way."

"Where is - what do you mean 'they'?" House asked curiously, he felt as though she was talking in riddles; he was trapped in a crossword puzzle where the clues just didn't make sense.

"The ambulance." She replied in a slow, patronising tone.

"Why are you doing this?" House asked in a more distressed tone than he would have preferred; by this point he could feel himself getting weaker and he didn't particularly want to give in to unconsciousness with the strange lady creepily watching him.

The woman didn't bother replying to his last question; House wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. He blinked heavily and rubbed his eyes with his free hand, not wanting to succumb to sleep; "What are you waiting for?"

The woman looked momentarily surprised before she answered, "We're waiting for the firemen to arrive." She said matter-of-factly as she looked expectantly over her shoulder.

"Of course…" House murmured sarcastically as he recalled all the times he'd seen firemen appear from behind his bookshelf in the past; he saw that the old lady clearly didn't get the hint so he decided to probe further, "what for?"

"To cut you out." She replied as her head snapped back expectantly to the bookcase.

House blew out a breath, clearly this old bat was two bread rolls short of a bakery; just his luck to get stalked by a psychopathic geriatric… "Out of where?" he decided to humour her, 'where the fuck is Wilson?' he thought desperately as he did another quick visual scan of the room.

"Out of your car."

House groaned and closed his eyes, 'she's crazy, bonkers, nuts, a fucking loony – and I'm stuck with her!'; he considered clicking his heels together and chanting 'there's no place like home' but seeing that he was already there, it wouldn't do much good – plus, he'd forgotten to put his ruby slippers on this morning… His chest became tight again, constricting his breathing as he kept his eyes closed, hoping that this was all some kind of bad dream...

He reopened his eyes as he felt the pain in his ankle flair up; he was immediately startled to find that he was no longer in his apartment but in his car. He cursed, partly in disbelief and partly because he could feel each of his nagging injuries come to life all at once. His ankle felt like it had been snapped in two; he tried to look down to see it but his vision was cut short with the sight of – 'shit' there was broken glass everywhere, the windscreen and both side windows were completely smashed; he could feel the cool breeze wafting the smell of burnt rubber and gas around his nostrils.

The steering wheel was pressed tightly into his chest at a peculiar angle, trapping him against his seat; he turned his head slowly to survey the remainder of the damaged car. The dashboard was twisted and snapped in various places – one particularly sharp bit was painfully wedged in his right side, 'Jesus' he thought as he saw his blood dripping along the hard, plastic surface and running along it towards the floor.

He remained eerily calm as he observed the wreck of another car through his own smashed windscreen; it looked to be an expensive sports car, probably fully equipped with fifty airbags that pop out of every orifice on impact. House could almost hear Wilson nagging at him to buy a nice safe car with airbags – 'too late now Wilson' he thought tiredly as he let his head loll to the left.

If he wasn't pinned down already he seriously thought he may have jumped out of his skin as his eyes came into contact with an elderly pair staring back at him. The same elderly pair of eyes that had been observing him in his apartment. 'Okay…maybe she's _not_ the crazy one…' House thought as he frowned questioningly but to no avail; the lady turned away from the car and rushed off out of his line of vision.

He must have drifted off again because the next thing he knew he was being gently slapped on the cheek and his name was being called by Wilson – Wilson! House's eyes widened at the sight of his friend standing by the car window; 'this better not be another dream' he thought warily.

"House – stay with me you idiot." Wilson said, voice dripping with concern as he attempted to sound angry.

'Yep, it's real.' House thought as he gasped painfully having tried to shift in the seat; at least in this universe cause and effect actually made sense, unlike his dream world where effect had no cause and was damned confusing.

"Wilson" he wheezed, "what the hell happened?"

"That idiot who cut us up" Wilson motioned to the mangled sports car, "he clipped the back of that car" he motioned to another car, half tucked in a ditch, "and we slammed into the rear of that van when he swerved to miss the jerk in the first car" he pointed to a van which looked virtually unscathed.

"Anyone hurt?" House asked hopefully, catching the look of disbelief from Wilson, "apart from me" he just needed to talk or he'd go insane from the pain; Wilson realised this and did a quick scan of the area, as if to check for additional wreckages.

"Err; the guy in the sports car has a broken thumb." Wilson offered unhelpfully, "and the old man in the ditch car bit his tongue…his wife was looking after you while I checked him out…"

"That can't be it? What happened to you?" House asked hopefully as he saw the stiff posture Wilson had as he leant into the car.

"You actually want someone to be injured don't you?" Wilson asked, not even bothering to sound surprised as he straightened up to show House that he was fine.

"It might help my situation…" House replied innocently.

Wilson was about to make up some horrific injury for an imaginary member of the crash when he heard the distinct sound of an approaching fire engine, "Okay, hang on – the cavalry have arrived." He reassured as he squeezed House's shoulder comfortingly; earning a groan in response.

"Tell them to hurry." House warned, stopping Wilson dead in his tracks, "I'm bleeding into my heart."

"What-how do you know?"

"I…had a premonition…"

**Author's Note: Okay, hopefully that made some sort of sense in the end? If not P.M me and I'll explain it all (I'm not doing it here though – just for the benefit of those of you who did get it!) I feel like I could carry on though…what do you reckon – If I get enough people asking questions I will answer them in another chapter…if not, then I hope you enjoyed the story!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: Okay, here's a little chapter from Wilson's point of view – it does have a little bit where Wilson thinks back to the crash…not to say that it explains a lot, I just really fancied writing it - lolI will do another chapter soon – maybe it'll make sense, maybe I'll just ramble on as per usual…or maybe I haven't decided yet :) Enjoy!**

Wilson stepped back as the Firemen ushered him out of the way of the car to cut House out; it had been agreed by the EMT's and Fire-fighters that House's best chance of survival was to free him from the car before he bled to death. House had been putting the frighteners on them by telling them to hurry because he didn't want to have to say 'I told you so' when he actually bled into his heart; not surprisingly they hadn't seemed too impressed by his medical prowess.

Surveying the damage from his position by the ambulance, Wilson was shocked to really see how close they'd been to being rear ended by the truck whose driver had been the first on the scene. He sat shakily on the steps to the ambulance as a nearby EMT came over to check if he was okay; she had nothing better to do since the only severely injured party was currently being freed from the confines of his wrecked car.

"Hey, he's gonna be fine." She reassured Wilson whilst draping a blanket around his shoulders; he gratefully accepted the gesture with a brave smile, but his heart wasn't quite in it enough for it to be convincing. "I've seen plenty of people get out of wrecks a lot worse than this one."

"Err…" Wilson craned his neck to see the EMT's nametag - _Pat_, "Pat. You're probably right…doesn't mean I'm going to stop worrying though."

Pat smiled as she pulled out a syringe she had been carrying in her pocket, "people in crashes like this don't usually order their rescuers to carry a syringe around, ready to pull the blood out from around their heart…I'm assuming he knows a little something about medicine?"

"He's a doctor." Wilson said, almost apologetically, "…and he's a little distrustful of EMT's."

"Oh…that explains why he bit my head off when I told him he was going to be fine."

"Don't take it personally." Wilson genuinely smiled, thinking of House tormenting the people who were trying to save him…typical.

It was only half an hour since they'd crashed, it felt like longer; Wilson felt like he had been trapped in the car for hours, he could only imagine what House felt like. Luckily for Wilson, the smash had only crumpled House's side of the car and he'd managed to escape relatively unharmed. Only now could he feel the bruises welling up across his collar bone and hips – but still he was glad he'd belted up; if he hadn't put his seatbelt on he'd surely be sprawled out on the road right now…dead.

Wilson shuddered as he distinctly remembered tasting the blood from biting his tongue, mixed with the smell of gas from the engine; he'd laughed almost uncontrollably at the time, blaming it on the shock of it all. His euphoria had soon been extinguished though after he'd glanced over to House. His friend was pinned against his seat by the steering wheel, which had risen dramatically to chest height; there had been blood dripping from the wound the dashboard had made by sticking into his ribs too. All in all, it had looked pretty bad…

It had taken Wilson a couple of minutes of trying to rouse House before he'd heard someone trying to open his door; it was the young, undoubtedly rich kid from the sports car who had decided he'd better try and clear up the mess he'd made.

The dumb kid hadn't even called an ambulance; luckily the elderly couple whose car had almost ended up in the ditch were carrying a cell phone which they made full use of by calling for ambulances, fire and police. The wife had managed to get out of the car safely, but the man had recently undergone a hip replacement and was temporarily stuck until Wilson went to his rescue.

The elderly lady had kindly offered to stand with House until he regained consciousness or the ambulance arrived; Wilson had literally just got her husband out of the car when she'd trotted over (as fast as her elderly legs would carry her) to report House as being extremely confused but awake. 'He's gonna be fine…' the young EMT's words echoed in Wilson's mind.

He was jolted out of his reverie by the second EMT who sprinted up and grabbed Pat; Wilson stood up, alarmed, and followed them back to the battered car whilst trying to catch the gist of what was happening.

"Need that syringe – now!" the elder, male EMT requested urgently as they reached the car; the fire-fighters cleared a small space for the two EMT's to gain access to their patient.

Wilson was stopped by a burly fire-fighter before he made it to House's side though; he craned his neck to see if he could see his friend but to no avail. He could, however, see what was left of the steering wheel; it had been cut away and now lay, twisted, sawn in half and discarded on the side of the road, which meant that House must now be free…but he wasn't making the usual racket.

"What's going on?" Wilson asked his burly companion.

"We cut away the wheel, but he just started choking or something." The fire-fighter replied sounding miffed.

Wilson nodded showing his understanding of the explanation, 'House was right about the bleeding into the heart then'; he wasn't actually choking, but Wilson didn't fancy correcting the huge man beside him just yet.

Suddenly the crowd of firemen seemed to jump back into action and surround the car once more as the two EMT's stepped back; Wilson took this as his chance to switch positions to get a better look. He stepped over to where he had an almost clear view of House in the car; Pat stood beside him, explaining what just happened – it fell on deaf ears though as Wilson already knew what happened…bleeding into the heart.

From his standpoint, Wilson winced as he saw what was left of House's car; it was an ugly car before and now, partly roofless and crumpled at the front, it looked no better. He peered through the commotion of firemen and saw his friend hooked up to a portable O2 tank, blanket draped over half of his face, protecting him from the sparks as the firemen made a meal out of cutting through the roof of the wreck. At first he seemed to be unconscious, barely flinching as the suspension bucked under the sudden loss of weight with the roof now gone; but as Wilson squinted he could see that House was actually awake, head lolled to the side, his eyes only half lidded but definitely fixated on him.

Wilson relief at seeing his friend awake soon turned to alarm as he saw House's head drop forward when he lost the battle to stay conscious as the firemen pulled off the door to the car. "Stay with us House, you're almost there" Wilson muttered desperately under his breath as he watched the EMT's rush forward to make the transfer from car to ambulance…


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing and asking for me to continue (or is that 'telling me to continue'!) – I'm glad you like it so far. It doesn't seem to want to end any time soon (honestly, this fic has a mind of its own!) – So enjoy (and let me know what you think.)! **

Wilson hurried forward to help the EMT's stabilise his friend; he hoped that in some way it might speed up the transfer to hospital, House couldn't stand to lose much more blood without serious permanent damage.

The older man's heart rate was weak and thready; his breathing was less than stable, shallow and rapid; Wilson didn't really want to know what his BP was showing right now for fear of the results. He also noted that House was mumbling incoherently, his eyes were constantly flickering and every so often he would gasp in pain…obviously he wasn't as deeply unconscious as he ought to be.

Wilson held the O2 mask firmly over House's face as the EMT's guided the fire fighter's over the best way to remove the dashboard which was tightly wedged below House's ribcage. It was clear that it had to be removed surgically, to prevent bleeding out; but it was going to be hard to get the whole vehicle to the hospital, so the fire fighter's had to perform their own kind of surgery, on the car itself…Wilson could only hope that House wouldn't wake up during the removal.

He watched one fireman climbing into the wrecked car, looking at the patient nervously as he examined the dashboard, trying to figure out the best place to make the cut. Wilson sucked in a sharp breath as the young fireman accidentally brushed the dash with his jacket, jarring the wound and causing House to groan deeply through the O2 mask.

"Take that damn jacket off!" Someone yelled from behind Wilson; he assumed it was the guy's boss due to the speed in which the rookie ripped his jacket off and threw it out of the car before giving Wilson a deeply apologetic look.

The older EMT took his position on the back seat, craning over to tend to the puncture from the dashboard; Pat acted as his assistant by running back and forth, ferrying bandages and other medical paraphernalia to help with the blood loss, occasionally checking with Wilson that everything was okay i.e. the patient was still breathing.

The nudge seemed to have knocked House out completely as he was no longer responsive to anything going on around him, the pain becoming too much for his body to tolerate; Wilson felt guilty for being relieved about the fact that House was no longer groaning because he was certain that he was still in considerable pain, even in his newly comatose state.

Some of the other firemen and cops were now watching intently as the young fireman started slicing through the dash, he'd only been chosen to perform the task because he was the smallest and therefore the one less likely to have problems in the cramped confines of the car, he wasn't comfortable with the attention being paid his way and his supervisor became aware of this when he noticed the guy trembling slightly.

"Okay, lets get these other vehicles cleared out – we want to get this road opened sometime today don't we?" The Chief yelled commandingly to the idle group loitering around House's car; his forceful tone had the desired effect as the crowd dispersed and made themselves busy. Wilson was alarmed, however, to hear one particular police officer grumble to his colleagues "look, I'm just saying, if _he_ dies then there's no chance this road will be reopened today – just call the investigation team, might as well get them in now before _they_ start moving everything."

The relatively serene morning that had started with so much promise was now turning sour as the sky gradually clouded over; Wilson cursed as he realised that the heavens were about to open, "Just what we need…" he mumbled angrily as he was passed yet another blanket to cover House with.

Meanwhile, in House's disjointed unconsciousness, he was having problems of his own…

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"Oh crap." It was the only way House could verbalise how he felt as he found himself once again lying on his apartment floor; the little old lady had seemingly disappeared, but then so had Wilson. "Trapped in my own mind with no one to complain to but myself…now I know I'm in hell."

He ran his hand down his right hand side, his fingers quickly becoming covered in blood; he looked down to see the open wound oozing with the red stuff, dripping on his jeans and onto the floor. "I'd better be in the hospital when I wake up" he warned to no one in particular as he dragged himself slowly to his feet, simply waiting for the pangs of pain to bring him back to his knees. Strangely, the pain was taking its sweet time in reaching him; not something to complain about, but certainly something to worry about…

Surveying the eeriness of his apartment for a couple of minutes he decided to make a break for it, maybe if he could get himself to the hospital here, then he'd wake up in it. It was an extremely flawed logic given that he had no control over what was happening in the real world, but it gave him something to do in his mind that could possibly take his mind off of the pain if it did return, so it was worth a try.

From his prone position by the window sill he cursed himself for not having a cane nearby; he looked over to his closet which seemed to be at least twenty feet further than it usually was, "Shit – who needs a voodoo lady when you do a good enough job of torturing yourself in your dreams..."

He stumbled from the sill to the couch, feeling his ankle throbbing a little through the numbness in his leg; he smirked demonically, pleased with his progress so far as he lunged across the room to crash into the door of the closet.

Opening the door to the closet he lost his footing and bumped clumsily against the frame in an attempt to stop himself from crumbling to the floor. Satisfied that he had thwarted gravity's attempt at unbalancing him, he continued to rummage through the untidy closet to retrieve a cane; finding only an old, chipped walking stick that he was sure didn't belong to him.

He tested it suspiciously, half expecting it to snap under his weight but finding to his approval that it seemed steady enough. He carefully took his first steps towards the front door, wondering what his mind had in store for him outside the confines of his apartment.

He entered the street, squinting as the bright sunlight filled his eyes; he did a quick scan of the area, not sure exactly what he was hoping to find, but still a little disappointed to find nothing out of the ordinary.

He ambled along at an unsteady pace, faintly concerned about the wound on his side still bleeding, the constant reminder that he should be worried about what was happening outside of his dreams. "Wilson wouldn't let anything happen to me" he reassured himself over and over again as he lengthened his stride, desperately looking for a taxi, or a bus, or any method of transport for that matter. Everywhere he looked was deserted; no cars, no people, just nothing. He walked down the middle of the road, if a car was going to come past, it would have to get by him first – failing that, he could just walk 8 miles to work. Maybe he was already dead and this was his punishment; stuck in a desolate dream – alone and miserable. "Oh God…"

He rounded a corner, breathing heavily and cursing himself for panicking; "It's a dream you idiot; pull yourself together!" he shouted as he rolled his eyes in exasperation, following the road through the woods at more of a comfortable pace trying to steady his breathing.

He stopped dead when he saw flashing blue and reds lights a little way in front of him; "Well this is just great" he sighed, realising that he'd inadvertently stumbled across his own accident. "If only I could walk this far and fast in real life – I wouldn't have crashed whilst driving to work!" He thought, smirking at the absurdity of it all.

House wandered up to the scene, watching, carefully, the cops, firemen and medical personnel that swarmed the place; the fact that none of them blinked twice at the lame man with blood pouring down his side convinced him that, at least in this dream, he seemed to be invisible.

He watched in amusement as the young guy from the sports car took a shaky drag from the cigarette he was fondling; his eyes were red and he was holding back plenty more tears as he gave two cross looking cops details of the crash. "Moron" House admonished as he stumbled past the group and moved onto the next car, a small, cheap sedan tucked half way in a ditch.

The elderly owners were speaking with a burley tow truck driver, haggling over storage rates at the compound where the car was to be sent. House shuddered involuntary as the old woman turned and looked sorrowfully past him; "yep, still creepy" he admitted, recalling her part as his torturer in his earlier nightmare.

He turned to look at where she was staring and blew out a shaky breath as he saw the wreckage of his own car; he could see Wilson knelt by the driver's side, holding something and looking at what House could only assume was himself, trapped in his car. "This is too weird…" House said under his breath.

It took a couple of seconds before he dared move closer to the crumpled vehicle, his curiosity overpowering his sense of dread. 'It's only a dream…' he thought as he took his first steps towards the car. He didn't make it far before he was thrown to the ground; a twisting, agonising stabbing pain in his bleeding right side crippling him and causing him to gasp out for air…'only a dream?'


	8. Chapter 8

"He's gone into respiratory arrest" Wilson alerted whoever was listening as he put his hand on House's chest, feeling for any movement that might indicate that he was breathing. Nothing. He grasped House's neck, fumbling for his pulse; he'd only checked it a minute ago but…Wilson felt it, still weak, but definitely there. He looked round desperately for Pat; the young EMT had sprinted off to the ambulance with the news of respiratory arrest and Wilson stayed feeling more helpless as each second passed by.

He ignored the cold rain running down his back, the hard ground making his knees ache and the commotion going on around him as the rookie fireman continued to cut away at the car; he kept his complete focus on House, watching the slight bluish tinge his lips and fingernails were beginning to take as his body became starved of oxygen – but Wilson was routed to the spot, unable to do anything as he watched his friend slipping away except feel his pulse getting weaker.

He stayed in his trance until Pat ran back with a different O2 mask and thrust it under his nose; only then was he able to jump out of his daze as he snatched it eagerly, pumping air for House himself, ignoring Pat's sorrowful look as she pulled yet another vial full of blood from House's heart; this was taking far too long and she was beginning to doubt that the patient would actually make it out of this alive, which would be hard on his friend who didn't seem to want to give up…

"Okay!" the young fireman triumphantly called out to the team, "I'm done here…you should be able to get him out…now" he trailed off as he took note of the newly freed patient's sickly complexion, 'they must be mad to think that he'll survive this…' he thought solemnly as he carefully backed out of the car.

It took two firemen and both the EMT's to get House from the car to the gurney in one piece; Wilson carried on pumping oxygen for him as it was clear that something had been ruptured by the piece of reinforced plastic currently stuck in House's ribs, 'probably a collapsed lung – nothing huge' he reassured himself calmly. His arms were burning with the effort of pumping the O2 mask and he'd had to change hands twice through exhaustion but he wouldn't give up now; this was House, he couldn't give up – not when he'd just been freed after 37 minutes of being trapped in a car.

Once House was on the gurney, it was action stations all round; Wilson helped run with the EMT's to the ambulance, knowing now that they had to get to surgery as soon as physically possible.

The gurney was loaded onto the ambulance and the soaked blankets carefully removed from House's prone body; Wilson gratefully accepted a towel from Pat before she set about stripping House cautiously out of his drenched clothes, being wary of the piece of protruding plastic in his side. After reapplying the temporary bandages around the ugly wound, Pat took over Wilson's job of stabilizing the patient's breathing; she knelt by his head, allowing Wilson to take over her newly vacant space in the cramped ambulance.

Wilson hesitated, listening intently as he heard the distinct sound of House's cell phone ringing out from, presumably, his pocket; 'Probably Cuddy, wanting to know where he is' Wilson thought as he reached down and took out the noisy object from the discarded clothing. He answered and didn't have a chance to explain before Cuddy began ranting in his ear "House, I told you to be here for 9 – today of all days, you cannot be late! Where are you?"

"It's Wilson…there's been an accident on the way in-"

"Nice try – he gave me that one last week, if he doesn't-"

"I'm serious" Wilson snapped, causing Cuddy to stop abruptly and take notice. "I'm in the ambulance with him right now – on the high road."

"When will you be here?" she asked tentatively, hearing the strained voice Wilson had, realising that there was unmasked panic there...'maybe he's not kidding'

"We're on route to Princeton General…"

Now Cuddy knew it was serious, "you don't go to the closest hospital unless it's life or death…tell me…" she said, her voice catching before she could continue, "how bad is it?"

Wilson looked at House on the gurney opposite him, fresh blankets covering everywhere but his head and right side, his hair was still soaked from the rain, his face was pale and he was still unable to breathe sufficiently on his own. Wilson found his words stuck in his throat as he actually weighed the gravity of the situation…this was more than serious wasn't it?

"Wilson?"

Pat was waiting to hook House up to an emergency I.V in an attempt to stabilise his BP; she subtly motioned to Wilson to take over the O2 mask. "It's not good – I've got to go" Wilson said hurriedly as he snapped the cell closed and dropped it behind him; almost certainly freaking Cuddy out with his inability to provide ample details on House's condition.

"Sorry" Pat said sincerely, "but he's in shock and I need you to take over so I can-" she held up the I.V needle and smiled reassuringly. She didn't want to add that Wilson also looked like he was about to lose it and she wanted to keep him busy until they reached the hospital; she'd experienced family members and close friends breaking down when confronted with a loved one in an emergency before, it didn't help…

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House slowly stood up from his face down position on the roadside; the pain in his side had gradually ebbed back to a sharp, lacerating feeling…which was actually an improvement. He felt cold and wet although, looking up, it was clear blue skies ahead; "I'm still dreaming" he sighed as he continued addressing the sky, "is it too much to ask to have Angelina Jolie join me?" he paused, waiting…'oh well, worth a try'

He looked back to the crash scene, it was deserted; 'I definitely preferred it when there were other people here' he thought as he limped over to his car, wincing as he caught sight of the amount of blood in the foot-well.

"Nice try" he said to no one in particular as he made his way further down the road, "but if I lost that much blood in reality, I'd be dead" he stopped suddenly, going over what he just said. Then, as if to reassure him that he wasn't dead yet, he doubled over in pain and struggled to breathe, abandoning his cane as he dropped, painfully, to his knees.

He gasped and raised his head as a shadow fell over his body; a young woman, no more than 25 years old, was staring down at him, grinning wickedly. "You've got nothing on the old bat from before" he groaned, acknowledging that this was just another of trick of his brain. "Why am I always getting beaten by girls?"

She walked up to him, putting her finger up against his lips signalling for him to shut up; he complied, although part of him was dieing to bite her damn finger off. She gently laid him on his back and began pulling at his clothes, gradually becoming rougher and rougher until she was straddling his hips and ripping his t shirt off completely.

Throughout the entire exchange she didn't speak a word; it wasn't until she stood up that House saw her talking to him…but for some reason, she had Wilson's voice. He tilted his head to the side in bewilderment, laying on the road wearing just his underwear, as she continued talking in reassuring, hushed tones.

"Almost there House, just hang in there…hang in there"

House tried to reply but felt himself choking, he desperately ran his hands over his throat trying to find the cause of the problem but to no avail; the last thing he saw as he felt himself slip away was the sun getting brighter and brighter, burning his eyes…

**Author's Note: sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up, I've been so busy at work, it's unbelievable. But I'm so excited 'cos last night in the pub, whilst watching T.V, I saw an advert on Five saying that House season 3 is starting soon here in the U.K, yay & about bloody time! (that news actually made my week!) – I knew it'd be worth going out to watch the footy…Err, oh yeah – next chapter up soon! x**


	9. Chapter 9

Pat dropped the I.V bag down by the patient's legs as his breath began hitching; the young EMT then grabbed another syringe to draw out more blood from his heart – 'how much more can he take?' she thought anxiously as she filled up the tube. She didn't have time to contemplate the answer before House began moaning and his fingers frantically grasped the corner of a blanket by his waist.

"He's waking up" Pat alerted Wilson hurriedly. Wilson swiftly started trying to keep House calm as he twisted slightly on the gurney; it was imperative that they kept him still until they got him into an OR; not only to keep him from being in too much pain, but also to prevent him from doing more serious damage to his insides.

"House, keep still; you're in the ambulance, you've got a punctured lung – I need you to calm down and focus on breathing for me" Wilson said calmly as he watched House's face for any sign that he'd heard him; he was rewarded with a frown, which was good enough, "you had us worried there for a second."

He watched, eagerly as House attempted to open his eyes; but the rain combined with sweat seemed to be making it difficult; Wilson used his sleeve to wipe most of it out so that his friend could become aware of his surroundings – he needed House to regulate his breathing instead of stubbornly fighting against the pattern he'd managed to maintain so far.

The older man groaned as he accidentally caught the piece of dashboard with his arm; at least now he knew why he'd been bleeding everywhere in his dream. He looked blearily up at Wilson; the oncologist looked like he was ready to kiss him for waking up, 'please don't' House thought as he squinted against the harsh light in the ambulance.

"Your ankle looks pretty messed up – probably broken…" Wilson added, noting the way House raised an eyebrow at the news, he continued, "you don't seem surprised" before sighing and nagging at his friend "next time you buy a car – make sure it's got multiple airbags." 'Jeez, at least in my dream, Wilson wasn't having a go at me' House thought exasperatedly as he gave his friend a withering look; Wilson smirked slightly, the worry still clear in his eyes as he held the O2 mask tighter.

The relief at seeing his friend roll his eyes at the lecture was soon surpassed, however, with more anxiety as he watched House screw them up in agony as the ambulance crashed through a pothole in the road. "Shit – you still with us?" House nodded weakly in reply.

"Hey, not far to go now, okay?" Pat said as she put a hand on Wilson's shoulder; making sure that it was clear she was reassuring the both of them, not just House.

Wilson nodded, giving House a questioning look to counter the strange look which he'd just given Pat when she'd spoken up; he looked spooked, like he'd just seen a ghost! "You okay?"

'I'm great Wilson, how are you?' House felt like saying sarcastically, but resigned himself into having a mini conversation with his mind instead; 'you idiot…that's the girly from before, who stripped you on the side of the road…kinky – but she doesn't have Wilson's voice anymore – thank God…because that was just too freaky!' he noticed that Wilson was still staring at him, concerned and waiting for a reply to the question, so House nodded again – 'no point in telling him that you're losing your mind…'

He made an attempt to look down at the state of his torso, experiencing the need to assess the damage that his faithful car had inflicted on him; but trying to flex muscles that had pieces of plastic sticking through them was hard, painful work and not worth the effort, he found out as he once again gasped for air. 'There's no way this is a punctured lung' he thought as he watched black spots dance in front of his eyes due to the lack of oxygen.

"Damn it House, you know we can't risk intubating you – not with the amount of blood getting around your heart – so keep still 'till we get to the hospital!" Wilson semi-shouted to his dazed looking friend as his eyes began to droop; House felt like he was submerged under water again and it wasn't pleasant.

He fought against his body to stay within the rhythmical breathing pattern that Wilson was trying to maintain with the O2 mask; he desperately didn't want to lose consciousness again because that would mean more strange visions…

The ambulance pulled up to the emergency entrance to Princeton General, the wheels barely having time to stop revolving before the occupants burst out of the rear doors.

Pat led them through the E.R and straight to the operating room where the surgical team were waiting; she shouted a few stats before letting go of the gurney, "47 year old male, blunt force trauma to the sternum – bleeding around the heart, severe penetrating trauma to the lower right hand side of the rib cage – possible punctured lung, probable break to the right ankle – you got his records?" the surgeon nodded in reply as he prepped the patient with I.V's and blood….lots of blood.

Wilson, who had been standing by gently squeezing House's arm during the prep for surgery, collapsed in the nearest chair. Pat walked over, focussing what was left of her attention to him; "hey, want me to take a look at that?" she motioned to a cut and swelling on his right hand. He raised his eyebrows as he apparently noticed it for the first time; he 'must have caught it when he was helping the old couple in their car.'

"You held up pretty well in there – I'm impressed." Wilson jolted his head up from his hand, surprised by how unfazed the young EMT seemed as she took on the next task of cleaning him up on the side of the sterile preparation area. His hands were beginning to shake now that the burst of adrenaline seemed to be wearing off; plus, he was anxious to know what was going on with House.

"How did you learn to be so calm in a crisis…I don't remember EMT's being so…professional." Wilson admitted, recalling his past experience's with dodgy EMT's.

"I was in a coach crash when I was 18…lotta injured people, some died – some lost limbs…I helped out where I could – _if_ I could…been a technician ever since" she paused a moment as she wrapped his hand in gauze, "I guess that's why they let us take your friend…" she faltered, as if she'd said something wrong. "I'm sorry – shouldn't have said that"

"Why?" Wilson genuinely didn't know what she meant.

"It's just…the cops, at the crash, they thought he was a lost cause – if your friend hadn't told us about the bleeding around his heart…he would have been" she carried on, seemingly embarrassed, "he would be dead right now – just another statistic for the road safety officers…they were reluctant to cut him out of the car at first because if he died _there_…they could put it down as a major fatality and wouldn't have to conduct an investigation themselves – leaving it to the state investigation team"

Wilson frowned in disbelief, "so what you're saying is that they wanted to leave him in the car –_to die_ – because it would have made their job _easier_?"

Pat shrugged, definitely embarrassed for her fellow emergency servicemen, "I assumed they sent me in to assess the damage…so to speak"

Wilson sighed, his head in his hands, as he tried to get his head around the fact that if House hadn't called that he was bleeding around his heart…he probably wouldn't have made it. He was oblivious to the sound of the door bursting open and someone with high heels entering the prep area.

"Wilson!"

Wilson looked up to find Cuddy jogging over to him looking panicked; Pat stood to the side, quietly dismissing herself from the room to make her way back to her ambulance.

"Where's House?" She asked breathlessly.

"In surgery-" he said, pointing to the closed door beside him.

"Have they put him out?" she asked, peering through the small window in the door to see if she could see him herself.

"Of course they've put him-"

"I brought over his medical records, instead of faxing, but I took a look" Cuddy said hurriedly as she paced the small corridor, "Wilson, he's on something - do you know what it is?"

"I don't know what you're talking about?" Wilson said slowly, fear building up in his stomach, 'what's House on?' he thought worriedly, 'does she mean drugs?'

"He's off the vicodin – you're his best friend; what is he on?"

"Cuddy, I don't know what you're talking ab-" Wilson was cut off by the alarms sounding within the operating room; he gasped as he saw House being restrained by a surgeon, "What the hell…"

**Author's Note: Next chapter won't be long – I promise! Too many unanswered questions… **


	10. Chapter 10

The main surgeon burst out of the room, his lip bleeding profusely; "he's hallucinating – must have mistaken me for a punch bag or something" he said as he hastily wiped his mouth on a wet towel. "Is he on any medication...prescription or otherwise?"

"He was on vicodin…but I think he's stopped taking it and replaced it with something else about a week ago" Cuddy said hopelessly.

"But you don't know what with…?" the surgeon confirmed; "Okay, we're doing the surgery – I don't care what he's on; but we won't be able to manage the post op pain if we don't know what he's been taking prior to the accident-"

"I've got three doctors on it as we speak…" Cuddy said enigmatically; the surgeon sighed, rescrubbed and returned to the OR. "His team were worried about him, they've been watching his every move for the past week – he's been acting bizarre…even for him" she added for Wilson's benefit, even though he seemed to be lost in thought "as soon as I told them about the crash – they wanted to help, so I told them to find out what he's been up to – they came up with the switch of meds"

Wilson nodded blankly, he had also noticed House's erratic behaviour lately; he'd put it down to the fact that the man had flu…or at least, he'd claimed he'd had flu. The past week had been full of difficult cases, at least for House it had; he'd taken on three patients simultaneously, keeping him busy, run down almost, and trying to focus on his work. "He was detoxing." Wilson stated, knowing that Cuddy had already figured it out for herself.

"He's on something else for the pain…I was hoping he'd told you what that 'something else' was." She sighed dejectedly, sitting next to him.

"I didn't even know he was thinking about changing his meds…guess he doesn't trust me anymore."

Cuddy frowned, ignoring the last comment, "you didn't notice anything different about him lately?" she asked as she flicked open the copy of House's medical file she'd bought with her.

"He seemed…_pleased_ with himself this morning; the proud kind of pleased, not the smug kind…" Wilson said quietly, deep in thought; he flinched as the impact of the crash came out of nowhere to smash through his memory, 'shit'

"You okay?" Cuddy asked as she looked up from the file, concerned with how much Wilson had paled over the last minute.

"Yeah…just worried" he replied truthfully as he let his gaze wander back through the small window to where his friend lay, now motionless...

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Meanwhile at PPTH...

"Why was he detoxing in the first place?" Chase asked the other two fellows as they sat at the huge conference room table with their own copy of House's medical records.

"Maybe he had another bet with Cuddy" Foreman answered, throwing another set of test results to Cameron; "he tested his blood a couple of weeks ago – I'd say the results scared him into giving up the narcotics"

"They should have…according to this – his liver was showing the first signs of permanent damage" Cameron said as she double checked the results then looked up at the other two; Chase looked taken aback and Foreman looked purely disappointed – he hadn't really wanted to be right about his boss' apparent ailment.

"Here's one from yesterday" Foreman said as he held up another set of results, "numbers look better…Cuddy was right about him giving up the vicodin then"

"He was scared" Chase mused out loud, "that's why he's been so moody lately"

"He's always moody – his liver failing just gave him another excuse for it" Foreman muttered as he read through a medical report from two weeks ago; "huh…Wilson didn't do his medical"

"Why would you automatically assume that his best friend would perform his medical?" Chase asked haughtily, swinging his legs off the table and heading over to the sink to grab a cup of coffee.

"Because he performed the last 10 years worth of House's medicals" Foreman replied patronisingly as he held up the thick manilla folder as if to prove his point.

"Oh…well, maybe they had an argument or something" the young doctor replied as he spilt coffee on the paper work strewn about on the table, "shit"

"Nice one – now he'll never know we've looked in his file" the neurologist stated sarcastically as he surveyed the amount of liquid that Chase was desperately attempting to quell with one measly paper towel.

Cameron, who had been busily engrossed in House's lab results, briefly looked up at the commotion and sighed; "Cuddy wants us to find out what he's replaced the vicodin with" she reminded the boys, exasperated with how little concern they were showing over their boss.

"He's not gonna die Cameron, he's too stubborn." Foreman snorted, causing Chase to smirk involuntarily – "unsympathetic bastards" she huffed under her breath.

It obviously wasn't the reply she was waiting for, both men realised, as she tore out a page from the records and snatched the phone from under Chase's nose angrily. "I'm going to ring the doctor who carried out his medical – you two, either do something, or get out before I really lose my temper" Foreman and Chase looked at each other in amazement, Cameron was peeved about something – whether it had anything to do with House or not was a mystery…'women!'

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"This is getting ridiculous" House sighed as he awoke to find himself driving along the high road to work; it was early morning and uncharacteristically sunny for a change. 'Just like this morning' he mused.

"What's ridiculous?" Wilson's voice coming from the passenger seat startled him and he turned to look at him in disbelief.

"Shit..." House stated as he turned to focus back on the road, although it was pretty pointless given that he knew he was dreaming about driving and not actually doing it.

"Are you sure you're alright? Maybe I should've driven in – you look like you're still suffering with that flu..." the oncologist trailed off when he stretched his legs and yawned hungrily.

"Yeah 'cos you look so much better, all hungover and sleep deprived" House heard himself say; although he knew for a fact that he hadn't moved his lips. He willed himself to stay silent as his friend continued to chat away to him, a sense of deja vu plaguing him as he listened intently to the conversation.

"I still can't believe I got plastered and you didn't touch one drop – you've never been sick enough to be put off vintage scotch on a Thursday, you must have been feeling pretty shitty...maybe you should have asked Cuddy for a couple of days off" he looked over to see the concerned younger man frowning at him.

"I'm fine...just the flu" again, he said it, yet didn't say it...but he remembered saying it. 'Now this is weird, confusing and unmistakeably trippy...I remember this.' he thought, completely spooked by the new development of his sub conscious.

"It was my turn to drive-" Wilson whined half-heartedly in the background, "you shouldn't even be going to work – you look awful, do you wanna pull over and let me go from here?"

"No! Seriously – enough with the beating yourself up; if I had a problem with driving, I'd have made you drive by now, so shut up already..." House's voice came sounding thick and exasperated as he made a sharp right turn through the narrow, tree lined road.

Suddenly, a small sports car came hurtling past House's window, making them both jump and curse simultaneously. Before House had a chance to do anything in reaction to it, the sports car attempted to nip past the small sedan in front before an oncoming truck approached; failing miserably to make it all the way past, he inadvertently nicked a van in front of the small car, causing the van to spin out in front of House's already beaten up vehicle, and the small sedan to hurtle towards the ditch the other side of the road.

"Shit" House heard as he struggled to swerve out of the way of the van, which was now facing them, passenger side on; the disadvantages of owning a car more than 15 years old becoming plainly obvious as the breaks failed to do enough to stop the large, heavy hunk of metal.

He, somehow, managed to manoeuvre slightly to the right of the van, taking the full force of impact with his side of the car; 'you're a cripple already – it's not like it can get much worse' he thought desperately as he felt his right foot slip down beside the accelerator pedal, his foot twisting as the car twisted, his ankle breaking as the vehicle broke.

He heard a muffled cry as the windows smashed with the impact of both cars colliding; it took him half a second to realise that it was he who had cried out, as the dashboard and steering wheel took this as their cue to manipulate themselves into his defenceless body; crushing his sternum and penetrating his ribs. 'Fuck...since when were dreams this realistic?' he thought as he panicked, with the smell of gas and burning rubber flooding his senses.

He vaguely heard manic, uncontrollable laughter coming from Wilson's side of the car before everything eventually turned to black...

**Author's Note: I just wrote this, literally, in the last 20 minutes – wanted to throw in an update before I go to bed...hopefully it makes sense (if not, I'm sure I'll get reviews telling me that I'm babbling again!) Sorry about the little scene changes - I know some of you don't like it when I do that...personally I think it breaks up the chapter a bit. But anyway, Thanks for sticking with me so far – hopefully you don't think this fic has sucked too badly...love and thanks to all my reviewers (you really do brighten up my day - cheesy I know) Anyway, I really am babbling now, bollocks (I can't help that I'm in a good mood for a change can I?) – Enjoy! x **


	11. Chapter 11

"Here" Chase said, eagerly holding up a tub of vicodin that he'd found tucked away in the back of House's desk drawer. The boys had chosen to help Cameron after her little outburst earlier; Cuddy had been on the phone, desperate for answers and it seemed like helping House was now a compulsory occupation for his fellows in her eyes.

"Congratulations, you've found a vial full of narcotics stashed in the desk drawer of a chronic pain sufferer" Foreman replied sounding thoroughly bored.

"Yeah but look at the date – it was prescribed _last week_" Chase triumphantly announced, getting to the climax "and _it's full_" he waited for some sort of praise; getting nothing from the other two, he decided to probe further around his boss' desk.

"Letter from Boston medical research centre" Foreman announced, with much the same reverie as Chase had previously done so with the vicodin; he scanned through it, picking out important words and phrases "patient: Gregory House…experimental treatment…registration…Dr he smiled smugly, "and there's a phone number too…"

"Yeah, yeah…I would have found it if you hadn't butted in" Chase grumbled as he chucked the vial of Vicodin back in the drawer and picked up an appointment card that was also hidden away in the bottom drawer.

Cameron ignored the two bickering and snatched the letter from Foreman's hand, taking it over to the phone in the conference room and dialling Dr Collins' direct line; she didn't want to wait another second getting back to Cuddy; from the sounds of it, House wasn't doing too good.

"Hello, Dr Collins? This is Doctor Allison Cameron from Princeton-Plainsboro teaching hospital; I understand you've been treating a patient – Gregory House...hello…hello?" Cameron tapped the receiver with her finger; "he hung up!" she added, seemingly shocked.

"They're definitely treating him then" Chase chuckled humourlessly, "let me try" Cameron passed the phone over and pressed redial for him. "Dr Collins - we know he's a patient of yours – we just need to know what he's-…" he dropped the receiver down, "I've been requested not to discuss this particular patients' treatment – especially with doctors from Princeton-Plainsboro" he said in a mocking, shockingly bad American accent.

"Watch and learn" Foreman said, extending his had to take the handset from Chase, redialling the number and waiting for Dr Collins to answer – if House had taught them anything, it was that the key to getting someone to listen was to lie; "Dr Collins, Dr House is in a coma – probably due to whatever drugs you're prescribing him…yes, I'm his attending, I'll fax it through now…thank you…what is he on?" Foreman scribbled down some information on a scrap of paper whilst talking with the other doctor. "So it's experimental…and the risk to the patient? …okay" he put the phone down and frowned at the paper in front of him before taking off his I.D badge and scanning it into the fax machine, sending a copy to the other hospital.

"So…what's he on?" Chase asked impatiently leaning forward to look at the paper when Foreman sat back down, "Refloxzine?"

"What's that?" Cameron asked feeling a little annoyed that she'd never heard of it.

"It's a type of tranquilizer…used to act as a booster to patients previously administered with Ketamine-"

"That was months ago – and it didn't work" Chase interrupted.

"It worked…it just wore off" Cameron recalled sadly as she collected together some of the records strewn haphazardly on the clear glass table: "is it dangerous?" Foreman nodded in reply, seemingly lost in thought.

"Why would he put himself through that again?" it was Chase who voiced the question that all three were wondering about. No one had a chance to answer before the fax machine whirred into life, pages upon pages of records being sent 'down the wire' from Boston.

"Call Cuddy" Foreman ordered urgently as he read through the notes pouring out of the fax machine; Cameron complied automatically, dialling Princeton General's switchboard number and holding the phone out to Foreman.

"What is it?" she dared to ask as he waited impatiently for the operator to put him through to the right department; he made no move to answer as he argued with the young operator for already putting him on hold.

Foreman was sure he'd read about Refloxzine in a journal not so long ago; the prognosis for patients had been deemed so bad that the production of the drug was forced to close early – so how had House managed to get himself included in a trial? The way Dr Collins had been reluctant to comment initially made Foreman suspicious of the legalities of the trial; why else would he refuse to release the records without faxed proof of his identity?

"His next booster shot was for today" Chase declared, holding up the small card he'd plucked from House's office; it was annotated with what looked like a strict timetable of dates and times on it. "He's in surgery now isn't he – what are they putting him on for pain relief?"

"Cuddy said they're not giving him anything stronger than an anaesthetic 'til they know what he's been taking" Cameron said, not understanding why it should matter anyway; "we know what he's on-"

"I'm not worried about what they're giving him – I'm worried about what they're _not _giving him" Chase said nervously as he picked up a page from the faxed reports. "Huh, 'sudden drop in blood pressure may cause hallucinations, delirium, confusion-' Jesus, not the kind of warnings they put on the side of aspirin bottles" he said as he studied the cautions carefully. "But they'll be pumping him full of blood and saline during the surgery though – won't they?" he mused out loud.

"Did you say his next booster was for today?" Foreman asked suddenly, recalling what Chase had declared earlier as though it had just struck him as being important; the fact that he'd been put on hold was doing nothing for his patience.

"Err, yeah – his third of this week…he must have his own booster kit or something; these dates and times are pretty precise...10.07am" Chase frowned as he read a doctor's scrawled handwriting on the card, "that was half an hour ago…"

"We've got to find that kit – I'm pretty sure Princeton General won't have any Refloxzine just laying about in their pharmacy" Cameron acknowledged as she dropped another page of the faxed records; Chase picked it up to see what had her spooked as she hurriedly fled into House's office.

"Oh hell" he cursed as he read the bold print; "Do not miss booster shots once started on the programme without consulting with your prescribing physician – withdrawal symptoms will occur shortly after the designated timeslot for the last shot."

"What do 'withdrawal symptoms' refer to exactly?" Foreman asked, daring to hope that it was just a simple case of elevated heart rate or something trivial…no such luck.

"Most common symptoms during withdrawal from the programme include tachycardia, low blood pressure, nausea, vomiting and seizures or convulsions" Chase looked up fearfully at Foreman, who was still clutching the phone against his ear, desperately willing for someone to get on the line, "We've got to find where he keeps the booster kit before he goes into withdrawal…"

**Author's Note: I've just created a monster haven't I? The end is definitely not in sight for our favourite diagnostician yet…in fact, you could say, he's going to be in even more trouble in the hospital than he was when he was in the car (because I'm mean like that.) Hope you're enjoying it so far – try not to let it confuse you too much; I'll do my best to answer all those pesky, unanswered questions over the next few chapters – plus, they will focus back on House, Wilson and Cuddy…enjoy! x**


	12. Chapter 12

"The object perforated his Diaphragm and gave him two broken ribs – but I've sorted that now" the surgeon started as he addressed Cuddy and Wilson, who were still waiting as close to House as was allowed; "I strongly suspect the bleed around his heart can be controlled now, without the need for drastic intervention – I'd suggest regular monitoring to establish how much blood there is, and if it's a problem or not…as for the rest; it's a simple break in his ankle – doesn't interest me in the slightest; we'll keep him going with the blood transfusions – he lost a substantial amount; he's on Saline for the moment…I don't suppose you've found out what he's on yet?" Cuddy shook her head, hoping that House's team had found something by now.

"Okay, by all means try and get it out of him when he wakes, but I'll warn you now – Saline will hardly take the edge off the pain he'll be in when he regains consciousness" the surgeon winced sympathetically just thinking about it. "Anyway, he's been transferred to the ICU now, we'll need one of you to sign over some consent forms and such, not really my area" he smiled as he waved a hand and backed into the OR, signalling the end of his involvement in the case.

"Thank you" Cuddy managed to say before the doors closed completely; she and Wilson were sitting looking stunned throughout the surgeons' entire speech.

"Correct me if I'm wrong…but was that his way of saying 'he's gonna be fine'?" Wilson asked, still a little confused by the surgeons carefree, laid back attitude; at PPTH is was all doom, gloom and pessimism.

"Yeah…" Cuddy said, a smile forming on her lips as it sank in, "he's gonna be okay"

"Dr Cuddy?" a small orderly popped her head around the door and passed her a message when she confirmed her identity by nodding. She took the note and read it eagerly "You go see him – I'll ring his team, they've got something" she said to Wilson as she hurriedly gathered up her coat and bag to make her way to the nearest phone.

Wilson stood warily, his muscles angry at the use after sitting for so long on the small, hard waiting room chair; he flexed his injured right hand, shaking his head as the pain shot up his arm. He didn't want to think about how much pain House was going to be in when he awoke; hopefully he'd stay out until Cuddy found out what he's on…

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Unfortunately, a short while after his transfer to the ICU, House was seemingly on the brink of consciousness.

"Gregory, can you hear me?" the elderly nurse repeated over the excruciating groans coming from her patient; he wasn't showing signs of acknowledgement and she was stuck there watching him until his doctor showed up. She looked anxiously over as a young man approached; as far as she was aware, her patient wasn't yet ready for visitors.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave" she began, flustered and raising her voice to the point of yelling as the patient gave another painful groan.

"I'm his friend" Wilson answered quietly, shocked at how pale House looked; he quickly and instinctively checked the various monitors around his friend's writhing body. "He's tachycardic…and his blood pressure's in the tank" he noted angrily, "where's his attending?"

"He's been paged – he should be on his way now" the nurse was interrupted as a tall, middle aged doctor burst into the room and grabbed up House's chart.

"Can't give him anything until you've found out what he's on" the doctor declared sharply; before Wilson could argue with the decision, he'd left the room – the nurse following closely behind him. 'He's obviously been on the end of one of Cuddy's lectures; but where the hell is she?' he thought desperately, 'she should be off the phone by now – we need to get him stable'

"Wilson" House gasped, rolling over to his right in the bed and causing his friend to gape at him for several seconds before stumbling over to his bed; if he didn't intervene, House would almost certainly rip his stitches.

"House – don't panic okay; you've gotta lay back for-"

"Wilson – why are you doing this?" House gasped as he continued to stare at a blank spot by the window, in a trance-like state; Wilson stopped, realising that he wasn't fully awake by any means. 'He's hallucinating'

"House, are you with us?" he asked cautiously as he leant over his friend's twisted body; he barely had a moment to react when the monitors began beeping wildly. House's O2 sats were plummeting dramatically; Wilson looked around as he slammed his fist against the nurse's call button, and then carefully rolled the older man onto his back. The intervention seemed to work as House's gasps turned into weak breaths and the sats improved slightly; "You've torn your Diaphragm – just stay on your back" Wilson said desperately hoping that maybe, deep down, House could hear him...

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House gasped as another bout of breathlessness overcame him; he'd been roaming an unfamiliar hospital for what seemed like hours. He'd heroically battled a surgeon after awakening to find him, scalpel in hand, about to cut him open; he had impressed even himself to find that he'd still got a wicked right hook!

House knew that this was still part of his mind playing tricks with him; he was certain that when he awoke from surgery, he'd be fine…all he had to do was survive his trippy dreams. It would be easy if he were dreaming about going to a monster truck jam or watching some good T.V; he'd be able to sit back in his mind and enjoy himself until he either woke up or died.

Unfortunately, his dreamlike state was not working out as he would have hoped. He was currently being followed by an elderly nurse who was insisting on stripping him naked and spraying him with a powerful hose; he did not want to be stripped down and washed like a Shawshank prisoner.

So, much to his exasperation, he was limping as fast as he could away from the old wench; the confusing thing was that Wilson seemed to be on her side and he kept popping up in random places in the hospital.

"Gregory, come on – can you hear me?" the old bat asked in a mockingly sweet tone of voice; "Just hang on" House heard as he quickened his pace, he briefly spared a glance behind him as he saw the elderly nurse fiddling with the nozzle of the hosepipe – 'you must be kidding if you expect me to hang around for you to soak me with that thing' he thought as he almost lost his footing on a pile of files strewn across the narrow corridor. "Jesus, now I'm being terrorized by clinic paperwork" he exclaimed to no one in particular as he tripped his way through.

He unsteadily rounded a corner, only to be swept over by a powerful arm; he coughed and spluttered as he prayed for air, laying on the cold, hard floor. 'What the hell was that?' he thought as he felt someone roughly holding him down.

He regained his bearings, looking in the reflection of a conveniently nearby window and found that it was Wilson who was pinning him down on his front, with his arms forced painfully behind his back.

He pleaded pathetically to the man whom he'd thought was his friend "Wilson – why are you doing this?" the words were weak and forced out as he felt his chest constrict, his breathing becoming almost impossible as the younger man knelt on his back harder.

Wilson flipped him over effortlessly and pressed his nose inches away from House's and sneered "You've torn your Diaphragm – just stay on your back" House complied out of fear; which was strange, he'd never been afraid of Wilson before.

He gulped in as much air as he could, which wasn't a lot; he was finding it extremely difficult to fill his lungs because of the torn Diaphragm. He squinted as Wilson blurred in and out of his vision for a moment; he was beginning to feel very nauseous…he felt the unwelcome taste of vomit filling his throat, but something wasn't right here – he couldn't expel it past that point. 'Torn Diaphragm – oh fuck'

He heard an unfamiliar, male voice shouting commands as he grunted, choking on the acidic liquid that was blocking his airway. "He's choking – I need suction here!"

**Author's Note: To be continued…(no kidding!) **


	13. Chapter 13

"What happened?" Cuddy asked as she approached the ICU to find Wilson out in the hall, looking physically drained, pacing the hallway and taking deep, purposeful breaths.

"He just choked" Wilson said after a couple more steps, throwing his arms up for effect, "choked on his own vomit" he laughed nervously as Cuddy gave him a shocked look. "Sorry, it got a bit tense in there, he's hallucinating and I couldn't – did you find out what he's on?" the question came spilling out at the end of the incomplete declaration, almost as though he'd just remembered to ask.

"Sort of…" Cuddy admitted quietly, to which Wilson frowned in confusion. "He's on something called Refloxzine…according to his team; it's a type of tranquillizer"

"Refloxzine?" Wilson repeated; it sounded almost familiar. "A drugs trial?" that was it – House had droned on about it one drunken night, probably the same drunken night as when he'd sung the praises of Ketamine. Something to do with a trial in Boston with a Dr Collins, a well known doctor in the drug trials scene due to his sneaky and often questionable cheating or fiddling around with the results to suit himself. Wilson remembered changing the subject sharpish and it was never mentioned again. "In Boston, right?"

"Yeah, how did you know?" Cuddy asked; Wilson hadn't struck her as the psychic type.

"I practically laughed in his face when he told me about it" he muttered, thinking back to that particular night, "no wonder he didn't tell me he was going through with it"

"He didn't tell anyone" Cuddy said in an attempt to reassure him. "I've given his doctor everything we know about the drug – we just have to wait for his team to find where he keeps it and he'll be okay…I think"

"We know what he's on – so why can't we give him painkillers now?" Wilson wasn't sure he'd grasped the plan completely, he certainly hadn't come to the same conclusion that Cuddy had.

"This thing basically is one strong painkiller – but you can't add others into the mix because he'll OD"

Wilson sighed and turned to watch the commotion surrounding House's bed, "what's going on?" he asked.

"Withdrawal" she whispered as she watched two nurses hooking House up with an anti-emetic and anticonvulsant in a vain attempt at keeping the withdrawal symptoms at bay before they reared their ugly heads. "Hopefully he won't regain consciousness before we find where he keeps his supply-"

"Who have you got on it?"

"Everybody…"

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"It could be anywhere" Chase moaned as he dusted off his lab coat; House's stash wasn't behind the dusty bookcase in his office, _that_ he knew for sure. "What's Foreman doing – how come he doesn't have to join in the Easter egg hunt?"

"He's trying to arrange for Dr Collins to courier over another batch of meds" Cameron reminded her colleague in a tight, controlled tone as she sorted through the books, one by one. Catching Chase's look of disbelief she sighed, "Look, if he keeps a secret stash of Vicodin in a Lupus textbook, then he'll probably keep his highly secret stash of Refloxzine-"

"-in an edition of Grays Anatomy – I get it!" Chase interrupted whilst throwing the Magic Eight ball up in the air a few times.

"Cuddy's got all the staff looking for it too – not just us" she said, "although I don't think they know they're doing it _for_ House; I think she told them that he'd lost a patient's medication and whoever found it would get him into trouble" Chase snorted at this, causing Cameron to glare at him. "I'm just saying – _everyone_ is looking for this stuff"

"I'm sure it's a great use of hospital resources" Chase deadpanned as he annoyed Cameron even more by sitting in House's chair and putting his feet on the desk.

"This is how you're helping?" Cameron asked angrily, "you're just gonna sit there?"

"Works for House" Chase shrugged as he tossed the ball up again; "Maybe the answers are all within here" he said mysteriously as he shook the ball, "Is House's stash in this room?" he asked the ball in a high pitched, wobbly tone, pausing as the answer surfaced "_You're asking the wrong question_? What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you should put that down and keep looking" Cameron snapped as she grabbed the ball from Chase's hand and threw it in a desk drawer. Chase raised his eyebrows in surprise but wisely kept his mouth shut as he continued with his half-hearted search for the vials of Refloxzine that could be the key to House's pain issues...

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House gasped as he desperately tried to swim against the black sea that had him trapped and fighting for air. He felt something part relief, part fear when he distinctly heard the sound of his heart monitor getting louder; he chanced cracking an eye open to survey the area, hissing as the light pierced achingly through his tired eyes.

Looking up, he could see the outline of a heart monitor, bags of blood and plenty of wires hooking him up. 'No pain yet; that can't be a good sign.' The room was silent save for the annoying heart monitor and the distinct sound of someone snoring softly to his right.

He gingerly turned his head to find himself face to face with Wilson's uncharacteristically ruffled looking hair; he grunted loudly in an attempt to wake the sleeping Oncologist, the technique working a charm as Wilson grunted and groggily lifted his head to see what had woken him.

"What…? House!" Wilson shot up out of his seat and leant over his friend, blocking out the bright lights that were causing him to squint. "Greg, I know you're in pain – but we can't do anything 'till we know where you keep the Refloxzine" he explained flatly.

House frowned; he hadn't told anyone about the Refloxzine and it wasn't the type of thing you simply guessed; plus, Wilson knew better than to call him 'Greg', unless he wanted a cane-beating. He also wasn't experiencing much in the way of pain right now.

"Don't tell me – this is the next episode of 'House's hallucinations'…" he muttered to himself in realisation as the figure of Wilson put his hand on his chest. "What are you doing?" House asked suspicious of the physical contact; Wilson ignored him as he pressed down on his chest, causing the pain from the broken sternum to magnify ten times over. "What the – Wilson!"

Every injury he'd sustained in the car crash chose that moment to flare up and overwhelm him; a nagging feeling told him it could only mean one thing… 'I'm waking up…Oh shit" he thought as his vision blanked several times, then another hospital room altogether came into view, albeit slightly blurry and out of focus.

There was a hell of a lot more confusion in this room; monitors were beeping frantically, Nurses were shouting and running around all over the place. Wilson was still there though, and he was shouting something unintelligible.

House tried to ignore the commotion and focus on what his friend was desperately trying to ask him; zoning out from the blood pounding in his ears along with the sound of someone groaning loudly was proving to be difficult though. 'Wait…that's you groaning, you idiot' he thought as he squeezed his eyes shut again and tried to take some substantial breaths through the mask that had been thrust over his face; he could feel the dark mask of unconsciousness trying to reclaim him, and it wasn't an unwelcome prospect.

"House! C'mon!" Wilson shouted over the din; he'd been repeating the same question ever since House had shown signs of waking up only three minutes earlier. "House, where do you keep the Refloxzine?"

"Hmm…hallucinating…again" House moaned quietly as he weakly shook his head to try and clear his vision after finding his arms virtually tied down with I.V lines.

"You're not hallucinating – Cuddy found out about the trial in Boston; we need to know where you keep your drugs!" Wilson pressed urgently as he watched House processing the information. "Where do you keep it?"

"The…ball" House gasped as a wave of pain swept through his torso and ended up as a ripple in his right ankle; Wilson was still standing over him, seemingly oblivious to the nurses who were trying to calm their patient down, 'C'mon Wilson – you're not that dim!' House thought as he struggled to stay conscious.

"What? A ball; what ball?" Wilson asked hurriedly as he watched the injured man slip away; "House, what ball?" but House had been pulled back under…

**Author's Note: Yep, you didn't think I'd forgotten about this fic did you? It's been haunting my dreams over the past few weeks – it won't let me forget about it! Hopefully you can see that it will be ending soon…unless you particularly want me to write more? I don't want it to become more repetitive than it already seems to be and I definitely don't want to bore any of you. Let me know either way x**


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: New chapter, voilà - Thank Labyrinth38 (who in turn thanks ColorOfAngels!) for help in uploading x**

Wilson burst into House's office, running straight over to his desk, sweeping aside various objects and throwing files around desperately; House's fellows looked on, bemused and slightly worried at the older doctor's uncharacteristic behaviour.

"What's wrong?" Cameron asked tentatively; from the looks of it, Wilson had either lost his mind, or he was on a mission. "Is it House?" she guessed correctly, although who else would it be?

"A ball…the ball…where's the damn thing?" Wilson muttered to himself as he sent more files crashing down to the ground; he didn't have time to explain to the three worried people looking over at him, why he was hell bent on finding a damn ball, he just needed it to save House. "Bloody ball…"

The three doctors looked at each other before Chase decided to probe further; "What ball?" he asked calmly as he approached the untidy desk to see if he could help.

Wilson's head snapped up, as if he'd just realised that maybe they knew something; "Err - where's that magic eight ball thing? I need it – have you seen it?" he asked hurriedly.

Chase's look of sheer bewilderment at the unusual request gave Wilson the urge to laugh uncontrollably; 'probably best not to, they'd definitely think you've gone mad if you do' he thought as he took a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

He dreaded to think how rude he'd been to the guy in the cab who'd brought him across from Princeton General; at least he'd told him that it was a Medical Emergency, which actually was true.

"It's in that drawer" Chase offered as he pointed to the desk, not daring to reach over and grab it himself for fear of being physically attacked by the jumpy-looking Oncologist.

Wilson ignored the ever-present questioning looks as he feverishly tore the drawer open and snatched out the mighty 'magic eight ball'; he ran it through his hands, looking for some sort of opening or catch of some sorts – anything that might indicate that it contained House's new meds.

When no such opening items apparent on the smooth surface, he simply threw the item down on the floor as hard as he could, shielding his eyes as he heard the smash and crack from the impact.

Pieces of plastic flew from the brittle object as it refused to bounce on the hard floor. Wilson only hoped that House hadn't simply buried the vials in it unprotected, then he'd be buggered…so to speak.

He dropped to his knees to scavenge through the plastic debris, desperately fumbling to find the vials. "He said they were here!" he exclaimed, his voice breaking slightly as he caught the sympathetic eyes of the puzzled, young doctors looking down on him, each of them unsure as how to treat him.

Cameron was giving him her sympathetic half-smile, half-frown. Foreman chose to just outright frown, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest; this behaviour made him seriously reconsider his opinion that Wilson was the sane one. Poor Chase was doing his best not to make eye contact, simply choosing to look anywhere _but_ at Wilson.

"Wait!" Chase said eagerly as he caught a glimpse of something just under their boss' desk. He reached down and triumphantly pulled out some vials protected in a bubble wrap bag; the smile growing on his face when he realised exactly what he was holding. "This is it!"

"Yeah" Wilson confirmed as he seized the package and stepped over the plastic mess he'd made. He made no move to explain why he was in such a hurry or what was going on, so House's team took this as their cue to follow him as he exited the Diagnostics department and broke into a jog for the stair well.

"Are you taking that to House?" Cameron asked as she ran to keep up with the determined doctor. "Will that help?" Wilson made no indication that he'd heard her questions, so she concentrated on galloping down the stairs behind him, trying not to end up breaking her neck.

Wilson stopped dead when he reached the ground floor, realising he'd no way of getting back to Princeton General; the three stalking doctors were following so closely, they almost tumbled into him.

"What's wrong?" Foreman asked, trying to straighten out his tie, which had insisted on trying to leave the confines of his collar via his shoulder. If he'd known he'd be doing this much physical activity today, he'd have worn sneakers and not the hard, black loafers that were currently killing his toes.

"I need a lift to Princeton General" Wilson said as he quickly considered the options available; he could ask for an ambulance, but that would involve having to get in contact with Cuddy to authorise it. He could find someone he knew, and ask to loan their car, but that would involve having to explain what had happened to House. He could hope that there was another cab waiting just outside…

"Wilson! C'mon" Cameron yelled as she tugged his arm; Foreman and Chase seemed to have already made the decision for him – Chase had his car keys jangling in his hand as they sprinted out to the parking lot.

Once all four doctors were belted up in the car, at Cameron's request, Chase pulled out of the hospital; wheel's spinning and exhaust screaming.

"Chase! Cut it out – this isn't Starsky and Hutch!" Foreman yelled as he held onto the edge of his seat, he was beginning to regret tagging along for this particular journey; getting House healthy wasn't _that_ important.

"Sorry, it's wetter than it was this morning" Chase replied in a feeble attempt at defending his shockingly scary driving.

"Just watch where you're going!" Cameron shouted from the back seat as they narrowly avoided smashing into the rear of an off duty school bus; "Wilson's already been in one crash today" she added as she looked over to the Oncologist who was staring blankly out of the window.

Wilson's mind was focussed on one thing; getting those vials to House. He didn't care how many pieces they were in or if they crashed on the way, just as long as they made it to Princeton General soon. In his mind, the cars and pedestrians weren't going by nearly as quick as he would have liked; therefore, Chase wasn't driving nearly as fast as he could be…not nearly as fast as Wilson would have driven himself.

He perked up as the entrance to Princeton General came into view, his hand on the door handle, ready to jump out when he was close enough. Once they entered the parking lot and were dawdling along, looking for a space, Wilson jumped out and sprinted to the ICU, clutching House's lifeline…

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Cuddy paced the small ICU room, thankful that House hadn't been put with any other patients. He was intermittently screaming in pain and whimpering weakly; she wanted nothing more than to put him out of his misery right there and then.

No doubt he hated her seeing him like this, but he really didn't have a choice in the matter; he'd very nearly bitten the heads of a number of nurses already and he'd only been fully awake for twenty minutes.

"Where. The. Hell. Is. Wilson?" House gasped, voicing the very question that Cuddy was asking herself over and over. He couldn't decide what hurt the most at the moment; it was a close race between his throbbing sternum and the stabbing sensation that was radiating from his injured side as the crappy anaesthetic wore off from his earlier surgery. The brace on his ankle was just as annoying, meaning his leg was killing him a lot more than usual. The withdrawal from his Refloxzine was only adding to the agony by ensuring that his broken ribs screamed menacingly at every uneven beat of his heart. 'Tachycardia sucks' he thought as he was unable to contain another cringe worthy moan, 'this is pathetic'

"He's on his way" she reassured, almost yelling to be heard as House groaned loudly; "If you hadn't felt the need to _hide_ everything" she complained quietly, not realising he could hear every word she said.

Her voice was the only thing he could focus on without feeling the need to rip out his stitches and drain his blood just so he'd pass out. The need to stop the agony was really _that_ bad.

"If I didn't – hide it – you'd-" he squeezed his eyes shut as the pain took over every morsel in his body, rendering him voiceless. "Junkie" he gasped when he recovered.

"If you'd told us about the drugs trial, we would have supported you" Cuddy said, knowing exactly what he was trying to say to her.

He smirked, the expression soon turning into a grimace as he remembered the last drugs trial he tried to get into. "Been there-"

"Done that" she finished for him, putting a hand up to stop him from trying to speak. "Please tell me this is legal..." House closed his eyes, which Cuddy took as a 'no'. "House!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air in defeat, she couldn't find words to express her exasperation at that point.

"It's-not. Exactly...Illegal either" he brokenly tried to reassure her as he feverishly tried to keep eye contact: he really wasn't up to having this conversation right now and it must have showed because Cuddy shook her head sadly and placed the O2 mask back firmly over his mouth.

She walked over to the door; the need to be as far away from the pained noises as possible overcame her. But she couldn't leave House just because she was uncomfortable seeing him in pain; 'hopefully the meds will help…they'd better help'

"Where the hell is Wilson?" she hissed to a passing nurse as the room became filled, once again, with the sound of groaning; if he didn't turn up soon, she'd smother House herself, put the both of them out of their misery...

**Author's Second Note: Don't despair, it'll all be over soon – although I could quite happily write about 'House's recovery/search for new meds' if I get any requests. You know me; I'm just a sucker for review requests! I feel a new fic coming on…**


	15. Chapter 15

Wilson's arrival into House's ICU room wasn't nearly as dramatic as he'd imagined. He pulled the door open with Herculean force and virtually leapt into the room, only to find it completely empty save for House on the bed, seemingly still. 'Probably passed out from the pain'

He looked over his shoulder, back out into the hallway, to see Cuddy sitting on one of the chairs by the nurses station; she had her head in her hands and looked pretty stressed. He was about to go and see what was going on until he heard House groan behind him, 'shit, not passed out then – just exhausted...'

"House! Hey, I'm here – I've got your meds, it's okay" he explained excitedly as he put a hand on House's shoulder reassuringly; when his friend's eyes snapped open and tried to focus on the small vial that he was holding up, Wilson was relieved to see the hint of a grin behind the semi-permanent grimace that he had been sporting lately.

"Okay, how much and where?" the Oncologist demanded as he drew up the meds in a large needle; the last thing he needed was to make his friend O.D...

"Hip, 20cc's" House croaked, his voice horse from all the shouting that he'd been doing lately. Wilson pulled up his gown away from his hip area and swabbed the area with a numbing agent, then he positioned the needle above where he would stick it in…

"Dr Wilson!" Wilson spun round to find House's attending doctor standing right behind him, looking extremely pissed off. "Could you come out here with me please?" he motioned to the hallway and stepped out, keeping his eyes firmly on Wilson holding the syringe, as did House.

"Hang on House" Wilson said quickly as he prepared to explain himself to House's attending; didn't he know - now was not the time for private chats; now was the time for action!

However, House's attending wasn't too keen on giving his patient unknown meds. In fact, you could say he was dead against it, much to Wilson's utter despair.

"We have to give him the meds" Wilson protested as the other man shook his head in disagreement, "they're his only hope-"

"They could kill him! I've never even heard of the damn drug; I refuse to use it on a patient without an appropriate consult from the doctor in charge of the trial" he argued back, shattering Wilson's plans of saving his friend. "I've already explained all this to Dr Cuddy..."

"But...just look at him!" Wilson was losing his cool by the time Cuddy came over to see what all the commotion was about. "I want you to explain to _him_ – why we won't give him what he's been waiting, _in agony_, for – for hours!"

"What's going on?" Cuddy asked urgently, she left it open for anyone to answer; although she guessed that Wilson had just found out what she'd been told a few minutes ago. "Have you got the meds?" Wilson nodded. "Maybe we could just give him a small dose-"

"Dr Cuddy" the nameless, stubborn attending began, "I am not administering _this_ medication to my patient – in _any_ form or quantity."

Cuddy frowned, looking from Wilson to the attending, then through to House. "You want to explain that to him?" she asked, referring to the squirming doctor who was the reluctant patient in the small ICU room just beyond them. "Because I can't do it"

The arrogant attending sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes, before motioning for the two guest doctors to enter the room before him. 'This is why no one else wanted to take this patient' he realised as he reluctantly followed the both of them into House's room, 'too many complications...and that's just from his companions'

House was tensely gripping the rails to the bed, trying to ride out the pain – a far more difficult concept than it sounded. It was becoming a far too familiar concept for him, taking him back to the infarction.

He warily regarded the three doctors creeping into his room; "Judging...by the...fact you look" he squeezed his eyes shut as another wave crashed over his head "-like I ran...over your puppy-"

"No meds" Wilson confirmed, not needing to hear the rest of his little speech to ascertain what he was trying to get at.

The fact that House was relatively aware of what was going on around him wasn't much reassurance for the Oncologist; he was seriously worried about the older man's vitals as the pain pushed his body to near breaking point.

His O2 sats were compromised, to say the least, by the severe episodes of pain that were pushing him past his body's endurance limit. His heart rate was all over the place due to the Tachycardia side affect from the Refloxzine withdrawal. The only thing that had improved on Wilson's return was his blood pressure, which explained the disappearance of the hallucinations and the coherence and awareness.

House eyed the syringe in Wilson's hand, almost longingly, then looked his friend dead in the eye. "Why?" he asked, sounding like a small boy who'd had his ball confiscated by an angry mother. Wilson simply looked to the attending, who was busying himself with checking his patients vitals; trying to ignore the pained moans coming from the bed as House became more and more agitated.

"Dr House" he started warily, not even bothering to take his eyes off the heart monitor. "I understand you're in a lot of pain – but you have to understand; Hospital policy restricts us from using unknown, or unverified, medication. I'm sure that when we've tested it..."

House completely zoned out from the young doctor's speech; his mind was in utter turmoil. 'Wilson did good – he got the meds...so what's this idiot trying to do to me?' he looked up at the attending, who was still explaining why it was a bad idea to relieve his pain. 'Yeah, real bad fucking idea...Jesus, if I wasn't in pain – you'd be out of a job! You'd never make it as an executioner...'

House smirked in a glazed over, manic sort of way, worrying both Wilson and Cuddy; the self-righteous speech maker hadn't noticed, too busy with avoiding eye contact with the room's occupants to be distracted by his patient.

AC/DC's 'Inject the Venom' seemed to be playing on a loop in the jukebox in House's head; _No mercy for the bad if they want it...No mercy for the bad if they plead...No mercy for the bad if they need it...No mercy from me. _'Jesus, I've got a doctor who thinks he's gonna kill me by giving me the meds' House thought as he let slip another gut wrenching groan and still failed to drown out the deafening song in his mind.

_Inject the Venom...Inject it all...Stick it in...Stick it! _House's eyes widened as he crashed back into reality and found his gaze focussed directly on the syringe that Wilson was still protecting. 'Oh shit!'

He heard his heart rate jump slightly and decided that if he was going to obey Brian Johnson screaming in his head, he'd better do it now – before Dr Ooh-lets-keep-House-in-unbearable-pain-for-as-long-as-possible decided to investigate the reason for the sudden elevation.

House grabbed the syringe from Wilson's grasp, wincing as he was punished by his screaming sternum for over stretching; both Wilson and Cuddy stared, open mouthed but silent as he lifted up his gown, stuck the needle, feverishly, into his hip and plunged the liquid into his body...

**TBC...**


	16. Chapter 16

"What the hell did you do?" the attending practically screamed when he turned around to find his patient with a huge syringe sticking out of his hip.

"Err, he did it himself" Wilson replied unwaveringly, trying to keep the smirk off of his face.

"Do you realise what you could've done?" the young doctor asked, putting himself virtually nose to nose with the Oncologist. "How much did you give him?"

"20cc's" Wilson replied, causing House to snap his head up in alarm.

"Oh shit" the drugged diagnostician said bluntly as he started to lower the head of the bed; all three doctors stared at him, as though they'd just remembered that he was there.

"House, what are you doing?" Cuddy asked disbelievingly as he dragged her out of the way of the monitor with his arm, evidently the super-painkiller was working just fine because he didn't even flinch with the movement.

"I didn't mean 20cc's – I meant point twenty!" House said, giving a dry, humourless laugh as he felt himself becoming more and more light-headed; 'great, just what you need – waiting all this time for the drug – then you get way too much of it' he thought groggily.

"You're gonna need paddles and epi" he instructed before putting a hand to his cracked sternum; "Actually, make that Atropine and no paddles" he slurred slightly, desperately trying to focus on the EKG readings on the monitor above his head. 'Wow, this stuff works fast'

"What-"

"Stat!" House said, cutting Cuddy off before she could finish the question.

"House, what's going on?" she continued, obviously he'd have to spell it out for her; although, judging by the look of sheer horror on Wilson's face, _he_ knew exactly what had happened.

"Stat _still_ means right now…right?" House asked smirking as his perception became blurred and wavy. He felt like he'd taken about six vicodin and was riding a wave of pain free ecstasy; not surprisingly, no one else in the room looked very pleased about this.

"Wilson just gave me an overdose" House whispered loudly as though he was telling tales; grimacing slightly as his heart palpitated unevenly causing him to gasp for air for a second, he added "I don't feel too good"

"Paddles and epi – and shut the blinds" Cuddy instructed as she watched his heart rate unsteadily fall. She scrambled to find the equipment herself as the monitors beeped alarmingly; Wilson hastily shut the blinds – if they were caught giving House the illegal meds, they'd almost certainly lose their medical licenses.

"If you're not going to help, get out of the way!" she yelled angrily to the attending who was just standing and glaring daggers at his semi-conscious patient.

"How about I call security and get _you two_ arrested for killing a patient?" he yelled back as he made his way to the door; he was trapped, however, when House's team used all their musketeering skills to stop him from leaving.

Luckily, they'd heard Cuddy yelling at the guy as they approached the room, so they knew that he was trying to land PPTH's two doctors in serious trouble. Obviously their master plan to save House wasn't really working out as it should be.

"I suggest you sit down and wait for them to stabilise your patient before you run to security – he's not dead yet" Foreman said, pointing to a nearby chair.

The attending sat in the chair, grumbling something about losing his medical license and going to jail for this mess.

"We should help" Cameron said as she watched Cuddy fumbling with the epinephrine; she couldn't just stand by and do nothing while House lay possibly dieing.

"Cameron, we don't even work here" Foreman reminded her in a patronising tone.

"Right, so if someone queuing in front of you in the bank has a heart attack-"

"Okay, let me rephrase that…I don't want to go to jail for killing a man – for killing _our_ boss" he replied in an even more patronising tone of voice.

"Watch the door then" Cameron ordered as she and Chase stepped up to help their boss. Foreman sighed and resigned himself to playing security man for the ICU room – House _really_ wasn't worth getting arrested over.

"Don't give him any more epi" Chase ordered as he fumbled for the pulse in House's neck, not trusting the monitor to give him an accurate enough reading. "I'm guessing you OD'd him, right?"

"Yeah, we gave him 20cc's of Refloxzine" Cuddy responded as she prepared to administer more epinephrine, Chase put his hand out to stop her. "What – are you trying to kill him?" she snapped crossly, yanking his arm off of her own.

"His heart rate won't drop enough to kill him; the epi isn't doing anything apart from messing up his O2 sats – watch…"

"Chase…I've got to give him this…" Cuddy said quietly as all four doctors watched the EKG monitor showing his heart rate dropping rapidly and unevenly. Chase ignored her and continued taking House's pulse.

Cuddy looked up at Wilson who was monitoring his friend's poor oxygen intake by holding a mask over his face and purposely ignoring the commotion around him. 'If House dies now, he'll blame himself for the rest of his life…' she thought sadly. "Chase…"

"Wait!" Cameron gasped, letting out a shaky breath; House's heart rate had stabilised as Chase had predicted, albeit at a dangerously low rate.

"He's bradycardic" Cuddy announced, "I need Atropine"

Cameron fumbled in the small, plastic drawers for Atropine, glaring at the attending who simply let her search through every drawer before finding it, without even offering her his help. He wanted nothing more to do with this particular patient, especially seeing as he didn't look too hot right now…

"The Refloxzine binds with Atropine – something to do with the molecular structure; you'll need to inject it wherever you administered the Refloxzine for it to take effect" Chase explained, catching Cameron's look of disbelief. "What? I did _read_ the records you know!" he said defensively, "_I_, for one, don't want him to end up brain damaged…or dead"

Cuddy hesitantly took the Atropine and stabbed it into House's hip, cursing as he flinched with the motion. "Shouldn't he be unconscious?"

"He's high as a kite; you just made him jump with the syringe" Wilson said as he checked House's eyes with Cameron's penlight. "His pupils are the size of flying saucers; no doubt he'll be riding the high for a while yet…"

"Err; actually the Atropine will counteract most of what the Refloxzine did…so you'll need to give him more when his heart rate resembles anything close to normal…" Chase was regretting knowing so much about the drug now; he hated being the bearer of bad news.

House's vitals improved steadily and the team looked to Wilson to administer another shot of Refloxzine, he looked apprehensive, to say the least.

"Do you want to do it this time?" Wilson asked Cuddy as he held the Refloxzine vial out to her in the palm of his hand; he didn't want to be in charge of giving House another potentially life-threatening dose of illegal pain meds, not after what just happened.

Cuddy reached out and plucked the vial from Wilson's hand, drawing up the meds quickly as House's breathing became more rapid and shallow. "You're completely sure about this?" she asked Chase urgently, "Because I don't want to kill him…"

"Yeah, I read the file" Chase defended himself, "seems like I was the only person who did…just give him the drug."

Cuddy frowned as she held the syringe over House's needle marked hip, fresh blood that had escaped from the pinprick of the previous injection was drying. 'What if Chase is wrong…'

She swallowed hard and almost jumped out of her skin when the patient's hand reached out and grabbed her wrist; she looked up to see House watching her under half-lidded eyes.

She had no time to react before he brought her hand down in a stabbing motion into his hip; she then plunged the tiny amount of liquid into his flesh and he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the meds to take affect…yet again.

"Not used to this self-service medication" he announced weakly after a few seconds of silence, save for the increased beeping of the heart monitor; he cracked one eye open, wondering if the other occupants of the room had simply left since it was so quiet.

"How are you feeling?" Cuddy asked sounding relieved; she leant over him, not really expecting to get anything but a sarcastic answer as she checked his surgical wound from the dashboard penetration – luckily, he seemed to still be intact. She'd been concerned that his drastic methods of getting the drug earlier had ripped his stitches – 'that's the last thing we need.'

"Better…I think" House admitted honestly as he slowly raised the head of the bed once again. "Stop staring at me like I've grown another head – I'm fine…mostly thanks to Chase" he said, mumbling the last part so no one was really quite sure that he'd said it. "Please tell me I dreamt the part where you gave me 20cc's of Refloxzine…" he groaned miserably.

Wilson winced before regaining his edge, "You _told_ me twenty!"

"I meant _point_ twenty – I was in pain; you should have read the damn instructions like junior there – at least _he_ wasn't trying to kill me with painkillers" he motioned to Chase, who was desperately attempting to blend in with the wallpaper so that his boss wouldn't rip him for being there.

Chase froze. Exactly how much did House know about his involvement in this? 'Oh God, what if he heard me being all dramatic?' he thought, embarrassment tingeing his cheeks with an attractive pink blush.

"Are you guys done yet?" Foreman asked as he poked his head through the door; House frowned at him and looked back to Cuddy.

"Is there anyone who _doesn't_ know that I'm here?"

"I don't think Ernie the Janitor knows you're here, he doesn't have a computer, so he wouldn't have got the 'House is injured' email alert I sent around earlier." Cuddy deadpanned, secretly relieved that all his vitals were indicating that he was fine now.

"Be sure to send him a memo, wouldn't want him to feel left out at the water cooler gossip station…maybe I should have driven _him_ to work instead of Wilson – Ernie wouldn't have tried to kill me with painkillers"

Wilson gaped for a second, unsure of the best way to defend his actions, looking to Cuddy for support; however, House wasn't finished with his mini-lecture yet. 'Maybe we should have sedated him too…'

"You do realise that you could have trashed my heart…and that was _three months_ worth of pain meds…down the drain" he grumbled, sighing as he felt the relief being flushed through his aching ribs by the second dosage of the wonder-drug. 'Finally, some proper reprieve from the crappy pain' he thought as he relaxed a little more in the bed.

"You told me twenty" Wilson repeated attempting to sound annoyed, he wouldn't let up that easily; this was _not_ going to be his fault – and seeing that House was close to exhaustion...now was definitely the best time to argue since he'd be sure to win for a change!

"And that didn't strike you as a bit much?" House whined. He wasn't really upset with Wilson, he was angry with himself for saying twenty instead of point twenty and he was taking his anger out in the only way he knew how – by annoying the hell out of his best friend.

"Well, I'm not as knowledgeable on illegal painkillers as you are…" Wilson grumbled, taking note of the way House's eyes were beginning to droop.

"You should be…your cancer patients would thank you a hell of a lot more…" House mumbled as sleep called him with a little more urgency; the past days worth of hallucinating was catching up with him.

He was desperate for _actual_ sleep; sleep where he wasn't being chased by a manic old lady with a grudge, a nymphomaniac paramedic or a hose-wielding nurse!

"I didn't make you inject it either" Wilson was still futilely arguing, much to House's groggy amusement.

"Brian Johnson made me do it…" he whispered, smirking as he finally drifted off, the weight of his eyelids finally becoming too much for him. Wilson frowned; 'House was hallucinating about Brian Johnson…?'

The End.

**Author's Note: Yeah, seriously, that's the end of this part of the fic. I've got some ideas for the second part with House recovering from his injuries and then searching for/trying out other meds – and I think it'll be pretty interesting (because I actually know where I want it to go with it!)…Hopefully this one wasn't too weird, badly written or boring for you guys? Due to changes in the team structure at work, I no longer have the time to write fics during the day…which is a bugger! So, updates will be pretty spaced out in the future – pretty gutted about that…Anyway, hope you enjoyed this trippy fic as much as I enjoyed writing it! x**


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